The premise is so simple there has to be a catch. A mid-engined V8 supercar from a highly respected premium brand for the same money as a new hot hatchback. Or less.
But that’s what you’re looking at right here. The Audi R8 you can see belongs to Dick Powell, founder of renowned design business Seymourpowell, and we’ve insured it for £40,000 to reflect its condition and low mileage. But clean examples are out there for £30,000 or less once you’ve done a spot of haggling. Meanwhile this five-door Volkswagen Golf R retails for £33,740 with the dual-clutch automatic gearbox fitted to the test car, although if you play fast and loose with the options, as VW most certainly has with this one, that price heads north pretty rapidly. As seen here with its titanium exhausts, this car, a Volkswagen Golf, remember, is just £325 shy of being a fifty grand car…
But on the drive over the Golf R reaffirmed why, to me at least, it remains the pick of the super-hot hatch brigade – so much easier to operate than the Honda Civic Type R, far easier on the eye yet scarcely less engaging on a decent run. It will be very interesting to see what the full-fat Trophy version of the Renault Sport Mégane is like when it arrives in the new year.
For now though, I’m being blown away all over again, not just by the Golf’s relentless point-to-point pace, brought about by an unrivalled blend of power and all-weather poise in the class, but also by the tranquillity that accompanies it. Maybe the interior should be a bit more exciting, maybe the exterior looks too much like a normal Golf with a big wheel upgrade, but I’m not sure I care: in all situations it works better than you could hope, as all the best fast Golfs have done for more than 40
I’m not alone in considering the Golf the best of its kind, either. Powell has one as his daily driver (“you could have used mine if I’d known”) and bows to no one in his admiration for it.
But an R8 is something different. Perhaps I shouldn’t be doing this, because the world has moved on and what appeared to be such a capable and entertaining car (miraculously so, given that it was Audi’s first mid-engined machine) 10 years ago may now seem, well, just a little lame. And it’s true that on paper it doesn’t appear to be all that special: 414bhp is no longer a remarkable figure, while its 4.6sec 0-62mph time is no quicker than the Golf’s.
You can see how Audi has driven the R8 upmarket over the past decade: limited-number RWS cars aside, the cheapest new R8 costs £126,200, almost exactly £50,000 more than the £76,825 that Audi charged for this car in 2007. Inflation? Hardly. Then it was priced to rival a Porsche 911 C4S; now it’s 911 Turbo money. And power: even the low-spec version is a 533bhp car today.
But I’m not sure I care too much about that right now. I’m just enjoying the simplicity of what I can see: a proper handbrake, a key that fits into an ignition slot, three pedals, analogue dials and the merest smattering of steering wheel buttons.
The driving position is superb and all round visibility almost Golf-good, which for a mid-engined car is extraordinary. The 4.2-litre V8 spins smoothly into life and with no preamble at all – because the way this car operates is far easier to understand than any modern Audi – we are under way.
Which is when, without my foot going anywhere near the floor, the R8 near enough bowled me over. In that moment there was not a damn thing about it I didn’t like, and very little that didn’t make me question the direction supercars have taken of late. We’ll start with the engine: it’s normally aspirated as, to its eternal credit, is that of the current R8. But they are a rare and dying breed, and the crossplane V8 is one of the very sweetest.
Gearbox next: it’s not only manual but also has a superb shift quality and an exposed gate, like those on old Ferraris and Lambos. Rifling through the ratios is just a joy.
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