Skip to main content

The R8 Spyder V10 Plus is Audi’s Most Powerful Convertible Ever

[See image gallery at www.vwvortex.com]

The summer driving season is finally upon us, and what better to celebrate than with the fastest series production convertible ever produced by Audi, the R8 Spyder V10 Plus?

European order books have just opened for the new soft top supercar fitted with Audi’s naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V10 producing 610 hp and 413 lb-ft of torque, just like in the hardtop version. Unlike the hardtop, the Spyder is available with an exclusive color, micrommata green (pictured).

As with the regular R8 Spyder, Audi has opted for a cloth top, for when the weather turns. Made with aluminum and magnesium ribbing, the top only weighs 97 lbs, despite pitching and packing in just 20 seconds at speeds of up to 31 mph.

Audi R8 Spyder V10 plus

Rather than trying fit a window in with the folded roof, Audi here has chosen to make it go straight up and down into the bulkhead. Two spring-pretensioned steel sections, meanwhile, keep your melon in one piece in the event of a rollover.

Losing the hood does impact performance, but only slightly. Instead of the 3.2 second to 60 that Audi reports for the hardtop V10 Plus, the Spyder gets there in a glacial 3.3 seconds. The top speed, meanwhile, is a lackadaisical 203.8 mph to the hardtop’s 205 mph.

Outside of the engine bay, meanwhile, the R8 Spyder V10 Plus benefits from the same race car-inspired suspension as any other R8, with a lightweight Audi Space Frame keeping the car rigid and light. The suspension, meanwhile, is an aluminum double wishbone set up, just like you’d find on track.

Audi R8 Spyder V10 plus

Up front, the Spyder comes with optional laser lights, a gloss black grille, and a low-lying carbon chin spoiler.

Built at Audi’s Böllinger Höfe factory, the cars are largely handmade, so customization options are nearly limitless. Audi recommends a selection of 11 colors, but you’re free to choose basically any color in the visible spectrum and from matte finishes, too.

Doors sills and sideblades can also be customized with just about any logo you like. Inside inlays, upholstery, and colors are also a source of near-limitless customization.

Set to hit the streets in late summer of this year (in Europe), has just opened European order books. In Germany, the base price for the R8 Spyder V10 Plus is 207,500 euros ($235,000). No indication of if or when it will be offered in the US has yet been given.

This story first appeared on Fourtitude

The post The R8 Spyder V10 Plus is Audi’s Most Powerful Convertible Ever appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2t27G8M
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...

Bugatti Chiron Won’t Get a Roadster Version

The all-new Bugatti Chiron hypercar will not get a convertible version like its Veyron predecessor did. Speaking to Autocar at the London grand opening of the sole Bugatti showroom in the U.K., marketing boss Stefan Brungs confirmed that the French automaker’s latest hypercar will only be sold in coupe format, with “no roadster or convertible” version in the plans. Brungs also said that the company is only planning on selling the allotted 500 Chirons as standard, so faster variants like a Super Sports version also aren’t likely. This is a very different strategy than the Veyron, which has targa top Grand Sport and Super Sports models, as well as a number of special edition models. The Chiron is set to try to break the world record for fastest car and attempt to beat the Veyron’s record of 268 mph. It is believed that the Chiron will be able to hit 288 mph. Powered by an 8.0-liter W16 engine with 1,500 horsepower and 1,106 pound-feet of torque, it shouldn’t ...

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...