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Michael Taylor27 Feb 2015
NEWS

GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: New Audi R8 breaks official cover

Audi’s sports car star gets lighter, faster, stronger for Geneva show debut

Audi has confirmed the details of its all-new, second-generation R8, with the 449kW Plus version capable of a 330km/h top speed to become the fastest production Audi in history.

Forced into an embarrassing early release of the R8’s details after an Australian magazine broke its global embargo, Audi has put all of its performance cards on the table for the new supercar.

There will be two initial versions, both powered by a development of the outgoing 5.2-litre V10. As previewed in motoring.com.au’s ride story last week, the standard version will deliver 397kW of power and 540Nm of torque, taking it to 100km/h in a claimed 3.5 seconds.

Of course, the most powerful R8 Plus – with 449kW and 560Nm – will be quicker, with a 0-100km/h claim of 3.2 seconds.

“Motorsport is in Audi’s genes, it has always been a permanent feature of our brand’s character,” Audi’s board member for technical development, Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, said.

“With the new R8, our engineers are bringing accumulated racing expertise from the race track onto the road. No other model of ours evokes more dynamic emotion.

“The new R8 V10 Plus is therefore the most powerful and fastest series production Audi of all time.”

It’s also the lightest R8 production car, too. The old R8 used a spaceframe aluminium chassis, but the new one uses the same theory, but uses a carbon-fibre piece for the floor, the tunnel and the rear bulkhead to add stiffness and reduce weight.

Around 40 per cent stiffer in bending than the old chassis, the car is also around 50kg lighter than its predecessor thanks to a chassis that weighs less than 200kg, yet can still manage all the extreme forces the R8 is capable of generating.

Audi gives it a “dry weight” figure of 1454kg, though admits to an unladen weight of 1555kg. To get down to this level, all body panels are made from aluminium, while some options and some of the Plus kit, such as the fixed spoiler and the front splitter, are carbon fibre.

It’s similar in size to the old car, with a 4.42-metre overall length, the same 2.65-metre wheelbase and 1.2 metres of height. The only significant growth has been in width, where the new car’s 1.94 metres are around 40mm wider than the old car.

Audi has killed off the 4.2-litre V8 from the new line-up, instead focusing, for now, on its V10s.

The engine now uses dry-sump lubrication to help it sit lower in the chassis and, at the top-end, introduces indirect fuel-injection to accompany the direct fuel-injection in the outgoing car to lift power and reduce consumption.

With a clear engine cover, it offers a good view of that engine, too, along with the new alloy diagonal bracing to add rigidity at the top of the engine bay.

Audi has also delivered cylinder-on-demand technology to shut off one bank of five cylinders when it’s not needed, which (along with idle-stop) helps lower the R8’s consumption figure to 11.8L/100km, with 275g/km of CO2 emissions.

It has also killed off the manual transmission and all R8s will now use a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. If you want to shift your own gears, you’ll now have to do it with the steering wheel-mounted paddles.

The upside for manual lovers is that the new transmission upgrades deliver a launch-control system and, at the other extreme, there’s a coasting mode, where light throttle loads signal it to open both clutches to let the car wisp along without any transmission drag.

It has shed the old, slow-reacting viscous coupling centre differential and the all-wheel drive system is now sorted out via an electro-hydraulic centre diff, while the water-cooled front differential is now far stronger.

It’s capable of handling 100 per cent of the R8’s torque if needed, and the centre diff is capable of sending it there in an instant. The rear diff has a mechanical locking system, which locks up 25 per cent on throttle and 55 per cent off-throttle.

The base car will ride on 19-inch Pirelli rubber, though the 20-inch versions fitted to the Plus will come from Michelin. The faster car runs on 245/30 ZR20 front Michelin Pilot SportCup2 ROI boots, with 305/30 ZR20s at the rear, while Cup tyres are available as an option.

“We now have an AO (Audi Original) mark on the tyre to show that it’s been matched to the car by the development team,” quattro GmbH boss Heinz Peter Hollerweger boasted.

Inside those wheels and tyres sit standard steel brakes, though a set of full carbon-ceramics is on the option list. The car is suspended from aluminium double wishbones all round, while the magnetic ride damping system is optional.

The old hydraulic steering system has been replaced, too, with an electro-mechanical system now offering faster reactions for less weight. There is also an optional dynamic steering system, which varies the steering ratio according to the road speed or the option chosen by the driver on the car’s drive select system.

That system, chosen via buttons on the steering wheel, gives comfort, auto, dynamic or individual options and tailors the steering, the gearshift, the engine response, the exhaust intensity, the all-wheel drive system and the skid and traction control systems to suit.

There are also three different programs for the sport mode, covering dry, wet and snowing conditions.

After sneaking into the very tail of the first-generation R8’s production life in the R8 LMX, laser headlights will be optional on both R8 versions, with each light using a single laser module to drive four high-intensity laser diodes. Audi claims the lights deliver twice the range of the R8’s standard LED high beams, which will contain 37 LEDs per light.

Some of the most radical work has been done inside the R8’s cabin, where it took the TT’s new fully digital, high-resolution instrument cluster and ran with it.

“The technique for the dash is from the TT, but we developed it by ourselves for the R8 and it has several new features,” Hollerweger said.

One of those is that everything the driver could realistically want to do can be controlled on the steering wheel.

The wheel itself is dominated by a huge start button and the fun stuff hangs down from the horizontal spokes. Firstly, there’s a button with an exhaust tip on it, which ups the sound density from the V10 by opening its bypass valve. Or there’s an even-louder optional Sports exhaust system.

The instrument cluster can be fiddled to include a real-time tyre temperature and pressure readout, a g-analyst, a power gauge and a torque gauge on top of the standard stuff. It also holds the navigation, sound system and multimedia options, while the R8 borrows another TT idea to put the climate control functions in the middle of the vents.

The massaged exterior look starts with the most aggressive single-frame grille in the Audi lineup, then takes some large air intakes and subtle aero work before finishing with a larger rear diffuser. The R8 Plus carries a fixed rear wing, while the standard R8’s wing pops up above 120km/h.

If that’s not mean enough, Audi has added a matt camouflage green paint colour to its existing line-up of 10 hues.

The car will be built in an all-new production facility, called Böllinger Höfe, near Audi’s Neckarsulm factory. The 30,000 square-metre facility includes assembly and body facilities, with about 400 people working on the R8 line.

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Written byMichael Taylor
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