- Exterior: Style Over Flamboyance
- Interior: Pure Audi But Without The Big Screen
- Drivetrain And Performance: V10 – ‘Nuff Said
- Verdict: Is This The Perfect Version Of The R8?
No journey is wasted with the top down.
This is the last model year for the current generation of the Audi R8, and its swansong is a limited edition 602 horsepower, rear-wheel drive coupe version of the V10-powered supercar we drove late last year. However, the hardcore version isn't where we focus our attention this week, as in our driveway landed the Audi R8 V10 Performance Spyder RWD – a slightly saner version that's more suitable for the road.
In this RWD trim, the R8 Spyder delivers 562 horsepower from the mid-mounted, 5.2-liter V10 sitting behind a snug two-seater cabin oozing way more refinement than most of its rivals could dream of. A bitingly fast seven-speed DCT controls the V10's howl and how it deploys its power, but the major selling point is that the R8 is a more refined supercar than the directly-related Lamborghini Huracan; if you can call a car that hits 60 mph in under four seconds and will irritate the neighbors if you start it too often at the wrong time of day, refined.
Exterior: Style Over Flamboyance
It's a fact of automotive life that the majority of supercar owners want to be noticed, but while the R8 does get noticed, there's a lack of obnoxiousness about the supercar. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot going on, though. Our test model arrived in Suzuka Gray Metallic with a black convertible roof, the carbon exterior package, LED headlights with Audi laser light technology, the sports exhaust system, red brake calipers (eight pistons at the front, four at the back), and riding on 20-inch 5-V-Spoke Evo wheels with a bi-color anthracite finish.
It's a combination of specs that flies under the radar compared to vivid greens and oranges sported by rival supercars, but I dare you to find an angle from which it doesn't drip sex appeal.
Interior: Pure Audi But Without The Big Screen
Inside the R8, it's snug, and both people inside will be sitting upright with little room to recline and stretch out. It was refreshing not to see an ounce of Alcantara in a supercar, and instead, we were treated to the Full Leather Package, featuring diamond-stitched seats in Express Red. What you'll notice is missing compared to almost every other Audi in its lineup is a touchscreen on the center of the dashboard. Instead, the infotainment is exclusively accessed through the drive gauge cluster through the Audi Virtual Cockpit system. It's not ideal for when you want to listen to music, but Audi does put basic physical controls accessible by the driver and passenger on the center console. There's no dual-zone climate control, though, as a supercar can only be so refined before excess weight starts to bloat it.
All the infotainment controls are just a thumb or fingertip away on the steering wheel. It looks crowded and busy, but it's all logically laid out and quickly becomes muscle memory, including the thumb-roll volume control. However, if preferred, Audi's dial-control system's hardware is on the center console.
Even the engine's start/stop control is from the steering wheel, and you'll be hard-pressed to miss it. The other major buttons include the basic modes select and a separate button for track modes. The basics are Comfort, Dynamic, Auto, and Individual, the last of which is programmable. The track modes include Dry, Wet, and Snow. Then, separately, there's another button for the active exhaust, letting you switch between Normal and Sport, or loud and louder as that classification is code for.
Drivetrain And Performance: V10 – ‘Nuff Said
The headline here is absolutely the 5.2-liter V10 making 562 hp and 406 lb-ft of torque. It may be turned down for the rear-wheel-drive format from the four-wheel-drive version, but it still howls up to 8,700 rpm and never feels short of power. Never.
The engine is damn near perfect, but the seven-speed transmission isn't when you drive it in automatic mode. This is most apparent in Comfort and Auto modes (the latter of which switches between dynamic and comfort). Kick the throttle down to overtake slow traffic, and eventually, it'll figure out you want to accelerate rapidly and then drops to a gear suitable for the race track with a jolt and a bang through the cabin as it takes off. For overtaking on the road, you're better off using the paddles to keep things smooth and safe. It's also much more satisfying.
For cruising without overtaking, the auto transmission is nice and smooth for the most part and relies on torque. Around town, it can be a little jerky when it decides to change gear while turning. But hey, this is a supercar after all.
The Performance model foregoes the adjustable suspension that can give a smoother ride perfect for daily driving and swaps it for a tune that isn't ideal for rougher roads. If you're expecting that, then it shouldn't be a dealbreaker, as it's far from a backbreaker.
While the DCT might be a little weak around town, it really comes into its own when you want to play. Shifts are fast, crisp, and happy to snap the neck back of the unwary, and every prompt of the paddles yields a kick to the kidneys from the V10 behind the cockpit.
At speed, the R8 isn't as engrossing overall as the Lamborghini Huracan, but the feel and precision of the steering is straight out of the top drawer. The steering is so precise yet natural feeling that it frees up some computational power from the brain to concentrate elsewhere. That's useful in a rear-wheel-drive supercar with a V10 trying to unhook the tires.
Even in Spyder form without a solid roof to help with structure, the chassis is taught. The grip is velcro-like and the limit a long way away – although you can get there quickly and the R8 can bite. However, unless you're careless with the throttle it takes willful driving to get the back out. Once the throttle curve is figured out in Dynamic mode, the tail can be wagged predictably but the real joy is in quick, precise driving.
Dynamic mode is the way to go on the road when the coast is clear and keeps things in check just enough to not feel like the electronics are interfering. As it was damp and cold, snow was on its way here in California, and we were on summer tires; we didn't even touch the track modes.
With that kind of weather, we only had small windows of opportunity to drop the roof, but it was totally worth it. The small window behind the seats can be dropped down individually so you can get a better dose of V10 sound, but it's at its finest with the roof down as well. It's apparent the R8 wasn't designed aerodynamically with a topless experience at its center and doesn't protect the occupants from swirling air like, say, the Mazda MX-5. However, even with crosswinds, we weren't buffeted around. On a warm day, it would be damn near close to the perfect top-down supercar experience.
The automatic roof retraction isn't fast, but it's manageable at a free red light without annoying people behind. There's a lot of engineering ingenuity for the sequence, which, watching through the rearview mirror, makes you feel like you are in a Transformer. It's also a testament to Audi's engineering and how it packs in the roof with the engine to make it look like the R8 never had a roof to begin with.
Verdict: Is This The Perfect Version Of The R8?
We love the R8 Spyder and wish it hadn't caught us while the weather had gone nuts here in California. Given that the R8 isn't designed to be the wildest supercar and gets billed as a “daily driving supercar,” a Spyder version is the perfect way to enjoy the car. However, we would not opt for the Performance version with the roofless experience. Instead, we would prefer the more compliant adjustable suspension and think of the R8 Spyder as a more extreme grand tourer with the ability to put in a quick lap time or hurtle down a mountain road with sure-footed confidence when wanted.
The only downside to treating the R8 Spyder as a full-on grand tourer is the woeful amount of cargo space in the frunk. It is a supercar, after all. However, with the softer suspension, it's a viable daily driver, and for the weekends, you can drop the top and log some serious miles. It's the kind of car that makes sure a four-hour roundtrip to try out a restaurant or coffee shop is never going to be a waste of time. As it should, with a starting price for an R8 Spyder being $171,000 for the RWD model and $222,100 for the quattro derivative. And that difference is easy to overcome though options, too, as our RWD tester was a hair shy of the $200k mark with options still left on the table.
But to truly appreciate the R8 Spyder's allure, you need to view it in the context of everything else in the segment. A Ferrari F8 Spider will run you $300k, and a McLaren 720S Spider $320k. The Audi may not have the turbocharged performance of these two, but it has a soulful V10 we'd take every day of the week and twice on a sunny Sunday, all for nearly half the price.
Keyword: Driven: 2023 Audi R8 V10 Performance Spyder RWD Makes Every Journey Worthwhile