Audi R8 V10 - more details

The magnificent Audi R8 V10 was officially launched at Detroit this week (although we brought you details on the R8 V10 over a month ago!), and it will cause some real problems for car manufacturers at this level – most noticeably Porsche. Which could be a problem, as Porsche owns Audi!

Audi R8 V10 - Cheaper than we thought

The R8 V10 seems something of a bargain at £99,575 OTR (or £104,665 for the R-Tronic), particularly if you compare cars with similar performance, such as the F430, which is nearly £40k more.

But is the V10 worth a £22k premium over the V8? On the face of it, that is quite a price difference, but the headline price does deceive a little. The V10 is quite a bit better equipped than its V8 brother. The V8 always had an attractive headline price, but you needed to spend at least £10-15k to get the car you really wanted. To a degree, the same can be said about the R8 V10 (or most cars at this level), but the R10 does have more value built in.

So what does the V10 get (at least in the UK) that the V8 doesn’t? Well, it gets:

Tyre Pressure Monitoring
B&O Sound System
CD Changer
SatNav Plus
Pearl Paint
19″ ‘Y’ Design Alloys
Magnetic Ride
Auto Dimming and Folding Mirrors
Hill-Hold Assist
LED Head Lights
Light & Rain Sensor Packs
Electric Seats
Heated Seats
Interior Light Pack
Stainless Steel Pedals

Plus of course a crop of V10 badges here and there. But this little lot makes the R8 V10 perfectly acceptable in standard spec and, unlike a standard spec V8, you would have no trouble selling this on, whereas there is virtually no market for used bog-standard V8 R8s (except at a big price penalty).

So what does this little lot add up to if you wanted to add them to your R8 V8? Precisely £11,235.00. Which means that the premium for the V10 is just £10,935 and not the £22,000 the headline price shows. Considering no one in their right mind would buy an unspecced V8, it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t opt for the V10 every time.

Of course you can go pretty berserk on an Audi options list, particularly on the R8. Ceramic Brakes? That’ll be £7k. Extended Leather? Another £5k. Nice set of luggage, Sir? Almost £4k. Still, if you were doing the same on an F430 you can at least double these prices.

But we reckon the R8 V10 is an even better bargain Supercar than we first thought.