Audi's R8 Spyder Awaited Eagerly

The automobile reviewers and owner are eagerly waiting for the most impressive car of the year - Audi's R8 Spyder. The car is becoming popular even before its launch due to the stylish design it carries.

This entire car batch for the year 2010 has been booked in advance by the Audi fans. The new model is different from the top model because of the reworking done to its styling. The car comes with the fabric roof and contrasting slide blades to give a nice finishing. The slanting roof has been replaced. Audi confirms that its fine engine has the capacity to inhale 750 kg of air per hour.

People who are expecting substance with style may get a little disappointed as the Spyder is presently available in Audi's 5.2-litre V-10 which accounts for 525 horsepower and 391 foot-pounds of torque which is supported by the
6,500-rpm. The car is a speed machine which responds eagerly once it hits at 3500rpm. If the gears are lowered down, the car can even go up to 5000 or 6000 rpm with a thunder.

Audi A8 Hybrid

Audi A8 Hybrid
Audi says its A8 Hybrid, introduced this week at the Geneva auto show, can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in 7.6 seconds.

Audi A5 Cabriolet 2.0 TDI S line Road Test

It's a while since I've had an Audi of any sort sitting outside the house, and I must admit there is something rather uplifting about it. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Audi is my favourite manufacturer above all others, but opening the front door and finding an Audi sitting there is somehow different - in an entirely positive way - from opening the front door and not finding an Audi sitting there.

This is not because Audis look dramatic. On the contrary, their designs are very restrained - the A5 Cabriolet which I promise I'll get round to talking about very soon whispers rather than declaims its status, which I find rather satisfying. And Audis which have not been ruined by having low-profile tyres fitted to them are generally very pleasant to drive, even if they happen not to be especially quick.

That last point is particularly relevant to the open-topped version of the A5. Last year I drove the 2.0 TFSI petrol turbo version, and in a subsequent road test questioned the advisability of fitting a 208bhp engine to a car which, unless it had four-wheel drive, did not seem able to take it. The 2.0 TDI turbo diesel reviewed here has 40bhp less, and a similar question arises. 168bhp is still on the high side for an A5 Cabriolet which drives only through the front wheels.

Nothing particularly dangerous or alarming happens if you start pushing hard, but it doesn't take long to take the car well away from its comfort zone. Both the ride and the handling deteriorate quickly, and you soon learn to take things easy.

That doesn't mean you necessarily have to dawdle. The Volkswagen Group's 2.0 TDI engine is one of the best in the business, and it develops enough power for relaxed but purposeful driving without any great effort on the part of the driver (far more so than the 2.0 TFSI does, certainly). I can quite imagine that you could buy an A5 Cabriolet of this type now and sell it in two or three years' time without ever having used more than an inch of the accelerator pedal travel, and not once consider it to be a slow car.

Other features of the car have been dealt with before but may as well be mentioned again here. Although it has four seats, it is quite out of the question to fit four adults into them, though I doubt that many Cabriolet owners would ever be minded to try. The roof - only a fabric job, following Audi tradition, but a high-quality one at that - does a fine job of keeping extraneous noise out of the cabin when it's in place, and when it's folded down there is a fresh-air feeling which does not extend to an impression that you are experiencing a hurricane (unless of course you actually are). Less happily, the footrest is placed so far away that even I, an unnecessarily tall person, find it hard to reach, a problem common to all A5s and indeed the A4s on which they are based.