Aaaaaaaaaand Audi Denies that the V6 R8 Exists

“There is no V6 planned for the R8,” or at least that’s what an Audi spokesperson told Road & Track earlier this week.

The assertion is in direct contrast to reports and rumors that have been circulating around the web about a 2.9-liter V6 R8 premiering at the New York International Auto Show.

The rumors’ origins, though, can be traced back to 2015 when Roland Schala told Top Gear that a V6 would fit rather nicely into the second-gen R8. Following the discontinuation of the V8, people have been waiting for a model to fill its shoes.

With Audi’s step away from dinosaur-based performance toward kite-and-key-based performance, the brand seems to have lost interest in the R8. Peter Mertens, head of R&D, even admitted that there are no plans for a follow-up to the R8.

While it might sound easy to shove the RS5’s V6 into the back of the R8, it was only ever designed for a V10, so even if there were plans for it at one point (which there’s evidence of) the development budget might have been moved over to one of Audi’s many e-Tron models following dieselgate.

As for Audi Sport, they’re busy working on their five new models, many of which we’re expecting to be SUVs.

Don’t cry for the R8 quite yet, though, because although Audi appears to have lost interest in funneling money into it, they certainly aren’t killing it any time soon. As Mertens said, the R8 “has a long life” ahead of it.

[source: Road & Track]

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