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Michael Taylor14 Jul 2015
NEWS

Audi R8 to go turbo

The paint isn't dry on the V10 R8 yet and Ingolstadt is already talking about turbos

Senior Audi officials have confirmed that turbocharged power is inevitable for its fastest sports car.

Audi's board member for development, Ulrich Hackenberg, and quattro boss Heinz Peter Hollerweger both admitted last week that turbo power would find its way into the R8 during its current life cycle.

Though insisting that it was right to stick with naturally-aspirated power and the throttle response its 5.2-litre V10 gave it, both men said the car would need turbos at some point to counteract the car's torque deficit to key rivals.

While the R8's sister car, the Lamborghini Huracan, remains naturally aspirated, the Mercedes-AMG GT and GT S, the McLaren 570 S and 650 S, the Porsche 911 Turbo and Ferrari's 488 GTB are all twin-turbo propositions.

Not only do they out-punch the strongest R8, the V10 Plus, on torque, they do it far earlier in the rev range.

However, both executives made it clear that a turbocharged R8 engine would be to give it an entry-level player, rather than to chase top-end rivals.

"It is inevitable that we will go to a turbocharged motor for it at some point. It would be in this model cycle, to give us a fuller range," Dr Hackenberg said during the R8 launch in Portugal last week.

"It's quite unique to build naturally aspirated engines today and our customers love it. It doesn't mean we are not going to do a turbo, but naturally aspirated is here to stay as well."

Hollerweger agreed, but insisted any turbo motor would just replace the old V8 as the entry-level model in the lineup.

The new R8 was never designed to take the outgoing V8 engine, nor the current 4.0-litre bi-turbo motor from the RS 6 and RS 7.

Audi has an upgraded development of its in-line five-cylinder motor on the way, along with an all-new, biturbo V6 engine that will replace the RS4's V8. Though neither Hackenberg nor Hollerweger would confirm which of the two engines was favoured by Audi's engineering arms, a senior sales and marketing source at Audi expressed a strong preference for the five pot.

"As a configuration, it's got such a rich history with the Audi brand and there is no sound more 'Audi' than the five-cylinder motor in the RS3," he said.

"It would have more than enough power and torque for the R8, and it's lighter, too, so it would package well, but we will see..."

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Written byMichael Taylor
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