Audi R8 China Edition: 80 cars – numbered 1-99

Audi has produced a limited run R8 China Edition with a total of 80 cars being produced in Blue and Grey numbered 1-99.

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There’s no doubting the importance of the Chinese car market to car makers – particularly high-end car makers – so it’s no surprise Audi has decided to produce a limited run R8 V10 especially for the Chinese market – the Audi R8 China Edition.

Not only has Audi produced the China Edition R8, they’ve gone to some trouble to make it as appealing as possible to Chinese buyers by numbering the cars 1-99, but excluding any number ‘4’.

The number 4 is thought unlucky in China as it sounds like ‘si’, which means death. So it’s common for many makers to omit the number 4 from their model designations, and Chinese society as a whole goes to great lengths to omit 4 from stuff like phone and building numbers.

So even though the R8 China edition is only an 80 car run, they will be numbered from 1-99 with the number of the car etched on the gear knob together with ‘R8’.

This is just a cosmetic makeover for China – so no power jump – with the cars all coming in Malibu Blue with Suzuka Grey sideblades or Suzuka Grey with Malibu Blue sideblades, Carbon fibre highlights abound, there’s a set of 19″ gloss black wheels and a carbon fibre rear spoiler. Inside the R8 China Edition gets shark skin with contrast stitching and lots of Alcantara .

There may be no extra power in this Chinese R8, but as its the V10 version it will manage to scoot to 62mph in 3.9 seconds.

It seems unlikely Audi will struggle to sell all 80 cars.