It’s difficult to figure what ranks as the most amazing feature about this car, since there are so many-its stunning good looks, the fact passersby can see the engine lurking under its glass cover, the engine’s 420 horsepower, the car’s unseen space frame that contributes so mightily to its rock solid rigidity and stability, this super sports car having all-wheel-drive, the car’s breathtaking acceleration, its stratospheric price tag or, that Audi let me drive it for a week.

What a beautiful car this is!

Built low to the ground, its sloping nose looks like a manta ray; you half expect the fenders to start flapping slowly. The projector beam headlights nestle in slits that resemble the cephalic lobes holding the ray’s eyes. Horizontal louvers below the lights that channel air to the hard working front brakes appear as gills to help the creature breathe.  The low roof line slopes gently to the nearly horizontal engine cover followed by a slight flattening at the rear that contains an active spoiler at the tail. The nose styling helps to mask the width of the car. But at the rear, the wide tail, holding LED taillights, and more louvers below, make a bold statement about just how wide this car is.

The width shows its good side when you climb into the R8. The two-person interior feels downright roomy with lots of elbow and shoulder room. The low-slung styling never intrudes with limited headroom, even on taller occupants. The seats conform to your body to hold you securely during the hard cornering this car executes with ease, but also remain comfortable after long stints on the road. Compared to this car’s competition, which include exotic names like Ferrari and Lamborghini, the Audi is infinitely more comfortable.

Like other Audis, the interior features tightly assembled and beautiful looking components. The instruments (featuring a speedometer that reads to 240 mph) are easily read and glow softly at night. In fact, controls climate and audio are lit in different colors to note their functions. The steering wheel has a flat bottom, the reason for which we can’t explain, but it does allow you to bring the tilt wheel a little lower for easier grip.

Start the Audi’s V8 and an equal amount of mechanical and exhaust noise fill your ears. The powerful engine has a lot of things going on inside of it and you can hear the insides of the machine working, until you step on the gas. Then, beautiful exhaust noises overwhelm any mechanical complexity. The engine has power aplenty and is ready to spin it out in any situation. Drive the car leisurely, shifting at low rpm, and it loafs along with just the beginning of an exhaust bark before you catch the next gear. But, stomp the pedal and wait until the engine gets near redline to shift, and you’ll hear noises akin to a lion’s roar, beautiful music to the enthusiast’s ear. Accompanying all the great sounds will be a forward thrust that you may have never experienced before. The car accelerates very strongly getting to redline almost before you can grab the next gear. The engine feels smooth throughout such maneuvers, but there’s nothing gentle about the force that is propelling you. What’s amazing about this relatively small displacement engine is its ability to pull strongly when you’ve left the transmission in a high gear and your speed drops way down. Left in fifth gear at twenty miles per hour, just step on the gas and you take off, not with the fearsomeness you’d get from a lower gear, but certainly quickly enough to out-accelerate ninety percent of cars on the road in a similar set of circumstances. Lack of a trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats, and the desire to keep my license, prevented seeing just what the top speed of this car would be, but the experience driving it tells me it must be very high indeed. Oh to be in Germany on the Autobahn.

Our version of the R8 came equipped with the Auto R Tronic sequential manual gearbox  transmission, and proved to be the only major source of disappointment with the car. A lever resembling a normal stick shift must be moved to the “drive” side of its range. Then just step on the gas, and after a slight delay, away you go. The delay feels like the hesitation of a 70’s era mini bike’s centrifugal clutch engaging. Once moving, you shift up and down with the aforementioned lever or by using paddles on the back of the steering wheel.  Gear changes happen very quickly and the engine automatically revs up to match road speed when downshifting. Once while exiting the highway, I shifted down too fast and too far catching first gear when I’d only wanted third, the engine screamed to its redline to match the road speed. While all the electronics and computer wizardry needed to make such a transmission operate are nice to have for the person who can afford the car but doesn’t handle a clutch too well, we would prefer a regular old manual transmission. That setup would allow one to better exploit the capabilities of this wonderful car.

The R8 has Audi’s magnetic ride adaptive damping suspension system. Without getting too complex (especially since we don’t fully understand its operation) the car has no springs and shocks and uses flowing hydraulic fluid to control how the wheels respond to the road. The car features two possible settings, one for comfort, and the other, sport. In the comfort mode, the car rides softly over the horrible roads of Brooklyn and Queens. It even pitches up and down over some of the more uneven road surfaces. It handles bad roads easily and feels like an early 70’s era Cadillac doing so. Switch to the sport mode, and it’s a completely different world. You can feel the grain of the pavement as you roll over concrete, asphalt and whatever else is used to cover our roads. Every minute imperfection is felt, but not with the harshness we’ve experienced in other performance cars. The adaptive suspension does an excellent job of holding the car securely, without it jarring the occupants. How does the suspension affect the car’s handling? Let’s just say we’ve never experienced anything like it. There are many locations in and around NYC that feature long, sweeping turns as you transition from one highway to another. These turns can be taken at speeds that would get you a ticket in a straight line. There is absolutely no body roll. The placement of the engine amidships, just ahead of the rear wheels, results in perfect balance. The car’s all-wheel-drive allows you to maintain perfect grip and control up to the car’s very high limit, at which point the front end pushes ever so slightly, which can be corrected by just backing off the gas a little. In a big, empty parking lot, we really pushed the car super hard through some turns and it was more of the same; some easily controlled front-end push and nothing more. Audi claims to set the car up so that more power goes to the rear wheels in its all-wheel-drive setup, which would make the car’s handling mimic that of a rear-wheel-drive car, which means we would expect the rear end to start to slide out at the limit. No matter what insanity we threw at this car, that never happened. All RWD vehicles should drive this well.

A car this quick needs brakes that haul it down from speed as well as it accelerates. That is no problem. The front brake rotors appear as large as garbage can lids. Giant calipers squeeze those rotors and slow this car with more force that it gathers speed. In a test, we nailed the brakes at fifty miles per hour as hard as we could once and felt aches in our neck, shoulders and head. There was a literal thump throughout the car as it violently came to a halt. You’ll never have any trouble stopping.

The only other problems with this car involved all the attention it provokes. This thing is a magnet for just about any kind of approach you might imagine. One woman asked if I was a gynecologist. Floored, I could come up with no snappy retort, but a whole lot came to mind minutes later. Just driving along the highway at normal speeds prompts people to drive up close and make challenging moves. They match your rate of travel, and then accelerate expecting you to match or exceed their speed. Resisting the temptation most of the time, we couldn’t help but give the driver of an Audi A8 a demonstration. His jaw dropped when we zipped by him quickly and effortlessly, with no downshift. Don’t mess around with this car if you see one on the road. You’ll get your feelings hurt in a hurry.

The other problem involved saying goodbye when the fleet rep came to collect the car. I felt as if I were losing an old, very exciting friend. I hadn’t felt this alive in years. Every day was fresh, new and exciting with roads I’d driven a thousand times seeming to be a new experience. I wish everyone had a chance to drive the Audi R8. It’s a life changing sensation and I feel privileged to have been able to enjoy it. All that snow driving in high school had a very good payoff after all.