Hide the animals, the R8 is coming

Born to fly, and a phenomenally striking and achingly beautiful car.

I am also really sorry for causing any neck injuries and near accidents in Simon's Town and for scaring the heebie-jeebies out of the family of baboons enjoying the early morning sun near Cape Point.

I also plead for mercy from all jealous husbands and boyfriends whose wives and girlfriends couldn't resist taking cell phone pictures of me (actually, it was of the car, not of me) as I drove past and wherever I stopped.

Ok, now that I have apologised I would like to stress that very little of this commotion was actually my fault. In fact, I had very little to do with it at all.

For you see, although I know the Audi R8 Spyder is a phenomenally striking and achingly beautiful car and that its almighty powerful V10 engine screams and thunders, I had not the faintest notion that it would cause such mayhem and drooling admiration wherever it goes.

Born to fly

And GO it seriously does. Even standing still it looks like it's doing way past 200km/h.

With his sleek beast the fun starts from the second you fire up the 5.2-litre metal monster lurking under its sleek bonnet. Stomp down the go-pedal to the floor and then hold tight because you have just unleashed 386kW and 530Nm of almighty fury which will rocket the R8 from park to 100km/h in a mere 4.1 seconds.

And if you can find a long, quiet stretch of tarmac such as an airfield somewhere or if you happen to find yourself on the Autobahn in Germany, this topless beauty will fly all the way to 313km/h! Yep, that's right, 313km/h.

Even standing still it looks like it's doing way past 200km/h.

However, if you really want your hair to stand up and smoke to come out of your ears drive into the Du Toits Kloof tunnel and do a rapid down-change all the way to second gear. The roar of this wild child will make you fear the tunnel is about to collapse.

Just starting the engine of the R8 in my garage at home was enough to trigger burglar alarms as the neighbours hit the panic buttons.

So no wonder Fish Hoek residents and the baboon family near Cape Point probably took a while to recover.

V-V-Very nice

But they are lucky because they will recover. I won't. Not after having driven the R8 around the full length of the Cape Peninsula early one morning and being hit by a full dose of souped-up Audi venom.

I loved the first Audi R8 with the V8 engine with a passion. Then along came the V10 model with a hard-top and I loved this model even more. Now along comes the soft-top R8 Spyder and I am smitten. Gone. Over the moon.

Nevertheless, like any car, the Spyder is not without the odd surprise.

Like any car, the Spyder is not without the odd surprise, but...

Firstly I expected more shake, rattle and roll. Chop the hard top off any car and it will affect its dynamics. And yes, the Spyder does have a little shiver and shake, but it's not a markedly noticeable body flex.

On stretches of old, refilled and often used roads the windscreen does shudder a bit and you can feel it on the steering wheel, but not in your spine or at the seat of your pants.

My drive was not a race-track test and the extra weight of the convertible will probably only be really noticeable at flat-on-floor speeds and around sharp corners.

But the person who forks out just under R2,2-million is not going to drive the Spyder like a loony and the sheer spectacle of the soft top folding away into the boot will more than make up for the slight difference in handling between the metal top and the topless.

Spyders are usually higher up on poser rankings and in the see-and-be-seen stakes than their metal top siblings and the R8 comes the closest to 10 out 10 than any al fresco car I have ever driven.

Arousing one's amorous ardour

It is so beautiful that I wanted to kiss it and stroke it every time I saw it. And so did many others who came to touch, look and drool - including one old dear who ever so kindly offered to marry me. All I had to do to win her hand in holy matrimony was to drive her to her local church just once on a Sunday-morning with the top down.

One of the many things that makes this Audi so special is its seamless surge, the ease with which it blasts out power, almost like it's never going to stop.

And talking about that, the way it stops is eye-popping. I didn't do any real high-peed emergency stops but even hitting the brakes at a tad over the legal speed limit it feels as though the Spyder would slam to a halt on a postage stamp.

To add to the impressive brakes and awesome acceleration the Spyder handles like a dream. It's easy to haul out all the clichés about being "glued to the road, nailed to the tar and solidly planted"- and all would be true about this car, plus a lot more.

You can drive the R8 at scary speeds and the only thing you will scare is yourself. And that will probably happen long before the car even begins to feel a touch tetchy.

What I also appreciate about this super Audi is that it is an honest two-seater without any pretence of space behind the two front seats. Not even a small pack-pack would find a resting place behind the driver's seat.

'Keep it real'

And the car offers little more than a mere suggestion of "luggage space." In reality it is a narrow ditch under the hood right in the nose of the car, hardly big enough for the blonde's smallest weekend Gucci sling-bag.

The living quarters - what a place to be.

click to enlarge

However, these are merely tiny freckles on the nose of a very attractive woman and the only real don't-like of our test car was its rather dreary R-tronic automatic transmission.

Left in auto mode it is simply awful, with yawning hesitation between gears but this does get a tad better when Sport mode is selected and the pleasure pedal is used with more enthusiasm.

I also tried the tap-tap option using the auto gear shifter, but what worked best was the flappies on the steering wheel which sort of defeats the purpose of having an expensive auto shift in the first place.

Given the choice I would much rather opt for the manual transmission which, like the Windhoek beer TV commercial, not only "keeps it real", but is also quite a bit cheaper than the R-tronic box.

One nice feature of the auto shift though is its built-in ability to blip the throttle (at times quite audibly so!) on downshifts.

Which brings me back to what I really, really love about the R8 - and that's its voice. In this era of politically-correct muffled exhaust tones the thunderous WHARM-WHARM of the R8 makes the world a better place to be in.

So, neighbours, dogs, baboons, burglar alarms and jealous partners please take note: given half the chance, next time an R8 comes my way again I will do the WHARM-WHARM thing again. And again. And just for the hell of it, again!

Specifications and details

Fifth Gear - Audi R8

Audi R8 4.2 Supercharged, Faster than V10 FSI? On Track Test

Top Gear: BBC:Audi R8 Car Review vs Porsche 911 Carrera