Jalopnik
Yes, folks, you read that right: Audi, well, they got a little funny in the head, and they went and handed me the keys to a shiny new R8. I, the least likely Jalop to ever buy any sort of new car- or, in fact, any used car new enough that I can't find plenty of parts for it in my local self-service junkyard- shall be reviewing Audi's new supercar for you today! [Maybe they mistook you for me. Wait, that's just me making myself feel better and trying not to believe Audi is reveling in my pain. -Ed.]
This story began when Audi decided to do an event for journalists in the Wine Country of Northern California, at which they'd show off their trio of hot V8 machines: the RS4, the S5, and the R8. Since I'm the only Jalop in the area- and since (as The Loverman so cruelly puts it) I don't know what it's like to drive a fast car not built in some bullet-riddled-appliance-filled back yard, using a tree limb as an engine hoist and Milwaukee's Best as a motivational tool- the all-powerful Postfather decided to hand me over to the care of the slickest PR team in the automotive world. I was a little intimidated, having never borne the schmooztastic onslaught of Audi's PR shock troops before, but part of the deal was that I'd be able to hoon a 190MPH übercar around the track at Sears Point/Infineon... so, like, hell yes! My orders: show up at a hotel near the San Francisco airport, where a valet would take my car and the Germans would give me an R8 to drive up to some top-shelf resort in the Wine Country.
Now, at this point I'm supposed to go into Hunter S. Thompson mode and rant about how I Rockforded the Crown Vic into the valet drop-off in a cloud of tire smoke, smashed my just-emptied bottle of Old Crow on the pavement, grabbed the first German I saw by the lapels, and shrieked "I got no time to waste, Fritz! Give me the goddamn car and make it a red one! Schnell! Schnell!" Sorry to disappoint, but I was terrified the Germans would simply affix me with their icy blue eyes (I pictured a Prussian general, circa 1870, complete with riding crop and monocle) and a tall aristocratic boss-type would issue a nearly imperceptible shake of the head that told his underlings: "For him, we have no car!" You see, my writing background is in technical writing and fetish porn, not automotive journalism. I'm fat and hairy, dress like I'm on my way to a glue-huffing party located in a burned-out Winnebago at Pick Your Part, and I have the software geek's intuitive fear and loathing of The PR Suits and their world. A schlub. But, by God, this schlub was going to drive an R8 at Sears Point, whatever it took!
That morning, the Crown Vic greeted me with a Check Engine light. I plugged in the scanner and got the code for "Lean Condition, Cylinder Bank 1." Damn, that's not good- car's been running flawlessly for three years and now half the fuel injectors are garbooned or something I can't fix right now. Fine, I'll take the Civic... my beater bass-player's gig-rig '92 Civic, from which some scrote tweeker had just razored the registration tags off the license plate, no doubt so he could stick them on his clapped-out '82 Cavalier with hundreds of tiny ziploc bags all over the carpeting. Well, maybe the Germans wouldn't notice.
Of course I screwed that up right away; when I rolled the Civic up to the valet, the first words out of my mouth were: "Hey, I got no tags on this thing- could you park it backwards so the cops don't tow it?" Sure enough, the Germans and their super-efficient assistants were right there, and I knew what they were thinking:
Back in the little Bavarian town I come from, there was this man, Otto, who worked in the dry-ice factory out by the pig slaughterhouse on the edge of town. Otto would get off work, drink a pint of cherry brandy, and stagger around causing trouble for the hardworking townspeople. One day he was caught urinating in the mayor's mailbox. But Otto saved his pfennigs, and he bought a 1965 Opel Admiral. He cut the mufflers off, installed off-road lights, and from that point on he made life on the roads intolerable for us.
Yes, I was a phony, not a true automotive journalist. I was Otto! No R8 for me! But, as it turned out, the Audi PR crew had all heard of Jalopnik, and they knew who I was, too. In fact, I must admit that everyone from Audi- German or American- was unfailingly pleasant with me the whole time, in spite of my apparent Otto-ness. Next thing I knew, I was stepping from my $1200 Civic into a silver $120,000 R8. And so, it seems that the best way to conduct this review would be as a comparison between the 2008 Audi R8 and the 1992 Honda Civic DX. At this point I should mention (as I did to the Audi crew) that I had never actually driven an Audi of any sort prior to getting behind the wheel of the R8; when I was in high school I had the chance to buy three partial Audi 100s for $50, with (allegedly) enough parts between them to make a single running car, but declined. The Germans seemed puzzled by this observation (Ach! We are making the giant mistake!), but seemed to take it in stride.
I didn't really have much chance to admire the car before heading off on the 90-mile journey north to Calistoga; it was just a matter of climbing in and hitting the road. This particular R8 was equipped with the R-Tronic automatic transmission, which (I found later) is pretty nice on the racetrack but fairly unpleasant in city traffic; in full-auto mode, it feels like someone who just learned how to drive a manual transmission is working the clutch and shifter, and I couldn't quite get the hang of the paddle shifters right away. The car seems to hesitate when leaving a stoplight, bogging down like you're about to stall it, so you give it some more gas, and then some more, and why the hell won't it go?... at which point some synapses click in the transmission ECU, the clutch grabs, and you blast off like some hoon showing off the new 396 in his Chevelle, and then you need to stomp on the brakes because the car is doing twice the speed limit before you have time to react, and you generally look like a schmuck. Just so I don't have to talk about it any more, I'm going to state this up front: If you're thinking of buying an R8, Jalopnik recommends that you get the 6-speed manual transmission. It's $9000 cheaper with the manual, by the way.
I made it to the freeway onramp and figured, hey, let's see what this thing can do! The R8 can run high 12s in the quarter-mile, so I figured I was in for some serious violence when I stomped the gas pedal; I've driven a few 12-second Detroit cars, so I was prepared for some enter-the-freeway-sideways drama. No drama- the R8 just went very, very quickly, with the Quattro system and all those smart traction-control computers keeping the nose pointed in the right direction, and a highly pleasing V8 note coming from behind me. Now I would like to state for the record my primary impression of the Audi R8: It is all about the engine.
12.5:1 compression on pump gas, thanks to direct fuel injection. Dry-sump oiling system (which is the main difference between the R8's V8 and the one in the wet-sump RS4). 420 horsepower out of 4.2 liters' displacement. Lots of cams and valves and incomprehensible German high-tech wizardry. An 8250 redline- 82 freakin' 50 Are Pee Ems with a V8, buddy! I'll tell you what I told the Loverman when he called to ask, "Well?" after my first day with the R8: This engine is God!
And that brings up my main complaint about this car: It's not crazy enough. It's comfortable, the ride is smooth (even on potholed Bay Area freeways), the climate control system will maintain your selected temperature with Teutonic precision, and- worst of all- the engine isn't loud enough in the passenger compartment. Come on, when you have a V8 that can hit 8250 RPM without blowing valves out the tailpipes, don't you want its every snarl to completely fill your consciousness? In fact, even the external appearance of the car isn't quite extreme enough for a car that can reach 187 MPH; it looks good and fast and all that, but I noticed that I got very few "Damn, look at that!" responses from other drivers.
Clearly, what Audi is trying to build- in fact, have succeeded in building- is a supercar that you can use as a daily driver. And you could indeed use the R8 for just that. Oh, sure, it guzzles gas and has a tough time going over speedbumps, and you'd need to be careful about where you parked it, but when a machine descends from the Olympian supercar heights into daily-driver territory it must compete with The King of Daily Drivers: my '92 Civic.
So, let's start with price: I bought my Civic for $1200; the '08 R8 with manual transmission MSRPs at $115,600. That's pretty close to a 100:1 ratio, and the R8 is only about five times more fun than the Civic to drive; that's a huge fun-per-dollar difference. Advantage: '92 Civic.
Next, we look at the sound system. My Civic is equipped with a Toyota Tacoma cassette deck I got on eBay for $10, hooked up to a wired FM modulator for iPod input and driving four junkyard Pioneer speakers. It doesn't quite fit in the dash opening (note to self: don't assume all Japanese car radios use standard DIN sizing), but it sounds pretty good.
The R8 I drove came with the optional $1800 Bang & Olufsen sound system with 12 speakers, 465 watts, and a satellite radio (strangely, it had no auxiliary input for the iPod I'd loaded with Pantera, Motörhead, and Rammstein just for the occasion; instead, it had dual slots for SD memory cards located behind the navigation screen... and the cards had been preloaded by Audi PR folks with a sense of humor: Bee Gees and Abba dominated the playlist. Won't SD cards seem quaintly outdated in a few years, the way we look at 5-1/4" floppy disks today?). In any case, the sound quality absolutely annihilates that of the setup in my Civic, and I was able to find some Alice In Chains buried in one of the SD cards, so it wasn't an all-Bee Gees drive. Advantage: R8.
As for engine performance... well, the '92 Civic has a 102-horse D15B7, which buzzes out less than 1/4 the power of the R8's mill. Fun as the Civic is when the cam reaches its happy zone, the R8 has it beat pretty handily in everything but fuel economy. But that brings me back to my main complaint that the R8 is just too civilized; godly as its V8 may be, its not-quite-so-godly 317 ft-lbs of torque means it lacks true madman brutality off the line. I've owned $1500 mouth-breather GM A-bodies that felt like they pulled harder than the R8 from a dead stop, and never mind that the R8 keeps accelerating like a Saturn V for about 70 MPH past the point at which an Olds 455 runs out of grunt- if I'm paying north of 100 grand for a car, I want the world to end when I floor it. I want my eyes to go out of focus and I want the headlights pointing at the sky, and when I hit second gear I want the thing to light up the tires for about 100 feet. Of course, I recognize that I'm not quite a member of the target demographic that Audi had in mind when they built this thing, so you need to take that into account. Even though I might want to swap maybe 50 horses for 100 ft-lbs... wait, forget I said that- this engine is perfect. Maybe the car needs to lose a few pounds, starting with the carpeting, sound insulation, and air-conditioning hardware. Overwhelming Advantage: R8.
As for overall comfort and day-to-day drivability, that's a tough one. The '92 Civic is bumpy and noisy compared to the R8, but the Civic's gauges are easier to read and its controls are simpler and far more intuitive. At this point, I should probably mention that I've never owned a car with remote locks, never mind a navigation system, and so all the data screens and layers of options in the R8's instrument panel just annoyed me. The R8's seats blew the Civic's away when it came to comfiness and adjustability, however, so: Slight Advantage: R8
That's enough for now; I think talk about handling, braking, and such should wait until we get the car out on Sears Point. Stay tuned for Part 2: Racetrack Hoonage With The R8!
Comments
Murilee is movin' on up!
Murilee: I would like to come to your house with my El Camino, a dozen boxes of engine/go-fast parts, a dozen more boxes of assorted tools and another dozen bottles of cheap vodka. I would then like to spend the weekend in an abandoned K-Mart parking lot and get hammered while trying to make the El Camino more suicidal.
Please.
I get to drive the R8 on December 3rd. Strange, some of your observations were what I was expecting. Still going to do my best to hoon it up.
Right. You should definitely be writing more car reviews; because unlike the majority of car reviews that I end up reading, that was enjoyable to read and actually had me laughing a bit at the start.
Can't wait for the second part and information on how it really preforms. Also I bet the Audi PR squads are tickled pink by the fact that you're comparing their uber-mobile to your beat-up Civic.
Good show.
Finally, a supercar review from an automotive journalist I trust. Give 'em hell, MM!
@junkman: Yes, exactly.
Car reviews anywhere else piss me off, because everything is held to some insane standard, where if it doesn't have an Audi's interior, Ferrari performance, and ride-quality, the car is a complete failure. This is why 8 seconds to 60mph is considered "slow," incidentally.
Considering we're reading a comparison of a supercar to a beater Civic, this is a pleasantly fair review that doesn't talk down to the rest of us schlubs.
Thanks, Murilee, for being halfway normal!
when I was in high school I had the chance to buy three partial Audi 100s for $50, with (allegedly) enough parts between them to make a single running car, but declined. The Germans seemed puzzled by this observation (Ach! We are making the giant mistake!), but seemed to take it in stride.
Love it! Keep up the great writing, all you Jalops!
Also, Audi, give Wert a break and let him have it for the weekend.
I just re-read the review to see if it could hit me again, and it did. The break where it you say:
"It is all about the engine."
And then show the pictures of the glorious piece of machinery with light breaking from behind it, struggling to overwhelm the monster - fantastic. Your writing is art to the layman.
"And that brings up my main complaint about this car: It's not crazy enough"
And this bring up my main complaint about your article. That's the F*cking point. Go take it on the track, a few times, run lap after lap after lap, and you'll understand exactly why it's as balanced as it is.
then again that's just my opinion (tracked it most recently this past weekend), well and that of various other notible automotive journalists.
Maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's a little trite to take a car named after a track dominating monster, which has widely been aclaimed as really showing it's stuff on the track, and just take it up and down a few city streets and highways. Perhaps that's why the print magazines still sell quite well?
@ruggels: Or perhaps if you read the entire article you would notice that tomorrow comes part 2, where Murilee talks about the R8 on the track?
While you state "I'm fat and hairy, dress like I'm on my way to a glue-huffing party located in a burned-out Winnebago at Pick Your Part, and I have the software geek's intuitive fear and loathing of The PR Suits and their world." (BTW COTD!)
I see you wore your standard issue Jalopnikian super car driving sh*t eating grin...
With that in mind I believe you are the perfect one to review this car. Audi knew what they were doing giving you this beast. You have no reason to talk it up, this review is well written, funny, and hands down honest. No offense to Wert but I believe every other sentence would of had a 'gasm...
Can't wait to see the next review and your standard issue Jalopnikian track driving sh*t eating grin (with a super car in MURILEE's hands!).
Ascendence of the Jalop schlub continues unabated. Next week, Corvette Blue Devil, or perhaps the next edition of the Scag?
@ruggels: Don't worry, I hooned it real good on the track. But you must wait to read about it.
yes, an excellent review! it speaks to the rest of us, those who can't compare this supercar to the other supercars we've driven...because we've never driven any. i mean, come on, i drive a '91 celica. sure, it sounds like a beast, but not because of any performance mods, it just has 224K on it. but reviews like this give me a really good view of what this car is like, compared to my daily driver.
looking forward to part 2!
Excellent review! I'm assuming the Audi will beat the Civic in on-track performance, though I'm also waiting to see how the R8 does as a bass-player gig-rig.
My wife's Outback does the same thing from stoplights, and I'm wondering if I just don't know how to drive an automatic trans.? Maybe it thinks it's in hill-hold mode or something, because for the first bit of pedal:nothing, a little more: nothing, more still: it thinks I'm trying to light up the tires and off we go. No modulation of throttle whatsoever.
I'm fat and hairy, dress like I'm on my way to a glue-huffing party located in a burned-out Winnebago at Pick Your Part, and I have the software geek's intuitive fear and loathing of The PR Suits and their world. A schlub.
My god, are we related? No wonder I think your reviews are hilarious. Best. Comparo. Ever.
@jonnyliberman, I did. but that's not the point. The point is that print magazines (EVO, CAR) have led some of us to expect an intrinsic critical thought in automotive journalism. IE: "compared to my point of reference (a 92 civic, and no previous Audi driving experience)my main complaint about this car: It's not crazy enough..." Now here's the fun professional, critical thinking part that i'll add "... on the street due to it's inherent development as a very neutral and capable track car which flatters any driver who sits in it"
I mean, seriously, You've got a journalist with no previous audi experience, claiming a 92 civic as a point of reference, and he's not the guy who drive it on the track? What other automotive publication takes a car out like this and foolishly decides it's wise for someone to take a supercar on the street, provide a half assed review, then let a completely different reviewer take it on the track? seriously?
I'm sorry, back yourself into the ignorant "man this reader must not have read this article" box all you want, but the point stands, very poor decision on your guy's part to split it up like this, which leads to implicitly juvenile and ignorant criticisms as the one I am taking issue with.
@ruggels: news flash, I don't want to read a review done by a "professional", Got it? good...
Great review! You definitely have to do more of them, and I hope you are the one to do the upcoming Challenger. I would really like to see your take on it.
@ruggels:
Do you work for the print-media, is this some sort of guerilla marketing tactic aimed towards undermining the credibility of the non-print variety or something? Seriously, though, I think you need to take a step back and chill for a bit.
Also, attempt reading the review; unless I'm somehow colossally mistaken, Murilee, in the second part of the review, will tell us how it was to hoon it out on the track. The civic provides a nice point of reference for your average bloke, it's sort of like Top Gear pitting some mind blowing supercar over a shite Vectra to show just how awesome it is.
Light then the heck up, alright?
@Tocsin:
Lighten, even. Christ, I should proof-read my comments a bit before I click submit.
No disrespect to Ms. Martin but I think that a lot of us have had it up to here with "self-respecting" car journalists. It's a pretty safe bet that I'm not going to be getting a R8 - ever. I like to hear about them, I like to look at them. But taking it seriously is like criticizing Angelina Jolie movies, it's pretty much pointless.
@ruggels: Holy shit, dude. All Jalop review are in two main chunks and then one wrap-up. And he ended the first half of the review saying "Stay tuned for Part 2: Racetrack Hoonage With The R8!"
He was giving his thoughts on the car. If you don't like his perception of it then don't bother. Jalops know who's writing the review and read it as such. I'm sure if Wert were reviewing this car it'd just be a masturbatory erotic tale of a boy and his Audi.
The best automotive review I've ever read period. Thank you sir, may I have another? Can't wait to hear the rest of the story. Trackside. Let 'er buck!
@Tocsin: Nah, I just came from the EVO and CAR review to this one.
Points taken on the lightening up,I've just read significantly better, non kitsch/cute "har har ancient civic vs r8" reviews, here on Jalop. Who knows, maybe it's a new feature? BlueDevil vs 94 VW Calbriolet?
@skaz:
Now I'm sort of disappointed that Wert isn't writing this review; I bet if he was there'd be dragons (Yes, plural) involved.
@ruggels: You're still not reading the article well enough. Counter to your "he's not the guy who drive it on the track[sic]" claim Murilee IS the guy that track tests it.
Why are you so angry, did someone dent your Golf.
Go MM! I loved the sidestory about Otto! :) :) :)
@ruggels: Also, "then again that's just my opinion (tracked it most recently this past weekend)" - I think this just wont DBCOTD.
I like your review style. While I do drive different new cars from time to time, Ive never owned a new car, nor do i feel compelled to pay for one. But it sure is fun to give em hell and give em back.
Its fun to play at the rich rid's house now and then.
Mr. Murilee, you certainly hold auto reviewers and PR/marketing schlubs in far higher regard than is merited.
Well crafted good sir. I hope you left that R8 smelling of Schlitz and burning tires. If so, mission accomplished.
damn, a review that is honest and fun to read -- ye gods man, don't you know you will upset the balance?
I want someone with that attitude delivering the 5 o'clock news. Honest delivery of real news and unadulterated mockery of everything else!
OK, that may be a bit much, but I really want Jalopnik to do more test drives and real world writeups of cars - super and mundane.
@ruggels: The point is to read Murilee's review of this car. Which is admittedly different from a review written by a veteran auto journalist.
Thats the gold in this review. If you want Csaba Czere's opionion, I'm sure Car and Driver will provide you with all the professional criticism you can handle.
Love the trailer-ball on the Civic. You should've compared their trailer-hauling abilities.
(wtf do you actually tow with a 102hp, 8lb-ft Civic?)
Otherwise +1 for a review that's not just a PR hand-job.
Love the comparison to the Civic!
Ruggels, you're doing about as well as the hypermiling guy from that "car club" on the impressing the commenters thing.
Am I being really stupid, MM's doing both parts of the review isn't he ?
Great work, Murilee. This is as good as a Dan Neil piece.
This is, in fact, the most useful an R8 review could be. For the most part, the only reason to publish reviews of cars that cost more than $90,000 is so that the "average guy" can dream of what it would be like to drive a supercar. So why not have an articulate "average guy" do the review? Brilliant.
Bee-Gee's?
@ruggels: What other automotive publication has a guy with a '92 civic drive an Audi R8 around on the street and write a review? Perhaps one that knows the vast majority of its readership is nearly the exact same person as Murilee.
Like 99.99% of the American driving public, I'll never own an Audi R8. He'll, I probably won't own an Audi A4! Why would I want some sort of 'consumer reports for the filthy rich' review comparing it to other cars I've never driven and most likely never will?
If I wanted that, I'd go buy one of your vaunted automotive publications with reviews by guys three times my age with car collections that are worth more than my house.
Murilee got to drive a car that the rest of us never will and gave us his impression, not the Audi PR department's line about where the car shines and why it should be a trailer queen for rich bald guys to take to track days aso they can brag to their friends about its inheirent neutrality and closed-circuit credentials.
I'm with Murilee. $120,000 should buy you a car that comes this close to scaring me every time I put my foot down - even in the real world.
Wicked review Murliee! Quite refreshing from the usual cold, inane reviews that most mags/sites normally spew out.
As a fellow P71 owning, beater hatchback driving, junkyard scrounging, beer swilling, weird vehicle loving hairy car guy, I give this article and your experience a huge round of applause.
i just think it's awesome you can afford a "beater bass-player"
i can only afford to keep one around, and i make him play all dang winter
What MM doesn't realize is that after the germans saw him w/ his untucked odd ball shirt, stubbled facial hair, beat up no tags honda civic, and that crazy american glint in his eyes they enabled the hidden "Remote Pilot" feature. So the whole time you thought you were driving in reality some ubber skilled driver in german was calmly piloting the vehicle. The whole bogged down issue you ran into was just bandwidth issues they were having since its a new feature.. still working out the bugs. Why else would this car cost so much.
Great article and keep up the good work
Mebbe' if we all pitch in we can buy 1 R8 and share.
I finally got to see one of these in the flesh last week. What a fugly asseed POS. Even fuglier in real life than in pics.
Great review, 'cept for the thing that matters most: The picture of the Germans' faces when they found out you're not a chick.
MM, this review just simply kicks ass. thank you.
i think you should be Jalopnik's foreign ambassador, charming quaint inbred folks across the pond with your lovable american barbarity. and driving their freakin' cars.
@Mad_Science: I'd imagine you tow a trailer made out of sheets of styrofoam, filled with cotton balls, and bubble wrap.
that made me laugh. the german in me doesn't often let me do that.
Don't worry, guys, in the second part Murilee definitely experiences the 100% limit of the car in traditional EVO/CAR fashion, with the fastest guy in the press crew ;)
The comparison to the '92 Civic is far more relevant than, say, a comparison to the GT