Audi R8 Spyder launch in Nice
Tom Evans:
Confession time: I love the Audi R8 and I love convertibles, so the R8 Spyder is one derivative that I have long looked forward to, even during the long period when Audi actually denied they were going to make one. So when the invite came through I’m afraid that I had to ‘bigfoot’ it with both hands, which leads me to the Cap d’Antibes beach hotel where I write to you now.
Can there be many more exciting sights in motoring?
As usual there are plenty enough cars to go around for the UK press gang, but everyone wants to flawed but still brilliant metallic gated manual version (the red ones) – and noone wants the ageing-Beverly Hills-billionaire robotised manual ‘auto’ version that costs a cool £5k more than the manual and is widely deemed ‘not very good’.
I’m sharing a car with veteran writer Paul Harris, who is the founder, editor and publisher of Audi Driver magazine (apparently the only Audi-only magazine in the world) and its sister Volkswagen Magazine (which has about half-a-dozen rivals in the UK alone, sighs Paul):
Paul Harris
Tom & the red devil
Having been lumbered with an auto on the brief run from the airport to the hotel, clever Paul proved his mettle and snaffled us the last red manual one for the long after-lunch drive from under the nose of The Sun’s Ken Gibson and Top Gear Magazine’s Paul Horrell. To add insult to injury, they then got to stare at our (4, natch) tailpipes for about half an hour as we got stuck behind maddening Sunday driver Renault Clios on the tortuous and unovertakeable coastal road.
Heading inland and we finally got some roads to get properly stuck into. I will leave full details for my first drive review – coming up shortly – but suffice to say that the R8 V10 just loves to be driven really really hard. Interestingly Paul and I had contrasting driving styles – and while we are both fast, he loved to dial in the torque by going in 4th up hill, while I always used 3rd as I find the snarl of the V10 as it reaches the upper reaches of power intoxicating.
Don’t know who was faster, but luckily I wasn’t going *too* fast when 1. an old lady tripped over spectacularly in front of us in a coastal town and 2. when we came round a bend to find a Fiat or something coming more or less straight at us; a local who knew the roads a bit too well, we figured.
We enjoyed getting hopelessly lost in the mountain roads around Grasse before heading back. On arrival, our manual got snatched away, needless to say.
More driving for me in the morning, then back home.
cheers,
Tom
Posted: March 9th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
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