A quick look at Lamborghini’s new racing Blancpain version Supertrofeo Gallardo on our way to Audi’s hall, we stumbled across a beautiful yellow Volkswagen Beetle and a white Combi which were used for advertising purposes by Coca-Cola. While Red Bull prefer using custom-built Mini Coopers, Coca-Cola decided to use the retro fibre in all of us to try and boost their sales.
After all, people had lost their interest in the Nanuk concept, surely remarking this was just a copy of the Lamborghini Parkour concept car presented at Geneva in March. We found a Ducati Panigale inside the hall too, as Audi had just bought the famous Italian motorbike manufacturer, along with the new S3 sedan. It feels a bit awkward thinking the A3 is now available I have to say, but I do really think that we’ll get used to it, although I wonder if this sedan version is really necessary as the A4 isn’t that much bigger.
The Ingolstadt brand has won (again!) the 24 hours Le Mans Race in July and had brought their diesel-hybrid racing LMP1 racing R10 car on the show. Audi’s supremacy at Le Mans is total: they have very reliable cars, and more importantly a very trained and experienced team who is very accustomed to the French race…
The most powerful sports car Audi produces, the R8, which was recently facelifted, was on display in a very simple, but yet beautiful grey exterior livery with red interior. I only have one (very small) complaint since the facelift, because from now on, it is impossible to distinguish the V10 and V8 Spyder versions apart from the side annotations. Before, you could just look at the exhausts, and if you saw four, it was a V8, if only two it was the bigger and more powerful V10 used on the Gallardo. A lot of people often ask me which version I would choose between the two engines, and I admit that for me the answer is quite obvious. I would choose the excellent RS4 issued 4.2 litre V8 because the Lamborghini Gallardo would be my choice if I had to choose the V10.
The big new car Audi was presenting this year at the IAA Frankfurt Motor Show was the brand new S8, which introduced the first facelift of the actual A8 generation. New features include the new front headlight safety feature called the Matrix LED technology, and the big news is the S8’s loss of the Lamborghini-issued 5.2 litre V10 for the more efficient homemade twin-turbocharged 4-litre V8 with no less than 500 horsepower. For CEOs who already regret the disappearance of their torque-ish V10, the Ingolstadt brand still proposes the famous 6-litre W12 engine with the long wheel base chassis of the A8.
Another Audi’s flagship that has inherited the 4-litre V8 is the RS6, which was displayed in an utterly stunning blue Sepang exterior livery. I really apprehended this new generation when it was revealed back in March at the Geneva Motorshow, especially as it is less powerful than its predecessor. Interestingly though, as Audi has focused on gaining weight, the new RS6 is actually faster and lucky journalists who have had the chance to already try it on the road didn’t seem to complain on the loss of power. I hope we will be able to confirm these impressions soon.
