Whenever a list of most popular series-production sports cars is made, the Audi R8 somehow always finds itself on the list. After all from Virat Kohli to Tony Stark, the R8 has quenched the thirst of every affluent sports car enthusiast. Unfortunately, the R8 will soon be mentioned in conversations in the past tense.
Audi has officially pulled the plug on the production of R8 recently. The final unit of the luxury sports car rolled out from the brand’s Bollinger Hofe plant near Stuttgart on 23 March 2024. This last unit will be preserved at the company’s museum in Ingolstadt.
The last unit of R8 was wrapped in a Vegas Yellow paint scheme with bronze wheels, and was a coupe with a carbon fibre styling package. Audi announced its plans to phase out the R8 back in October 2022. The last 2,000 units of R8 were supposed to be produced in 2023. This announcement led to a surge of orders for the last few R8s, which is why Audi reportedly extended production by a few more months.
Audi R8: A rich legacy of speed
After making its debut as a Le Mans Quattro concept at the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show, the R8 evolved into a production-spec model three years later. The car’s illustrious tenure would be highlighted by a hat trick of wins at 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race between 2000 and 2002 and then again in 2004 and 2005.
The second-generation R8 was introduced at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show. The German marque sold the first and the second generations of R8 for a limited period in India. Sadly after two generations of sweet symphonies from V8s and V10s, Audi brought an end to the combustion-powered R8. Replacing the R8, will be an all-electric hypercar which will be radically different from the outgoing R8.
Audi R8: Unmatched performance
Initially, the R8 was powered by a 4.2-litre V8 petrol engine powering the rear wheels. Come 2015, with the launch of the second-gen R8, the V8 was replaced by a larger 5.2-litre naturally aspirated V10 that pumped out 612 bhp sending power to all four wheels via Audi’s Quattro all-wheel drive. The last unit has been named the R8 ‘Performance Quattro Edition’.
Source: TopGear