calzona

I don't post here much but I wanted to share my experiance with the Audi R8 I had today. I recently moved to Henderson, NV about a week and a half ago. I was driving down Lake Mead Parkway toward Las Vegas and saw an interesting car going the other direction, then turn into a Chevron station. I did'nt know what it was but my interest took the best of me. I turned around and followed the car into the Chevron station. The car pulled into the self serve car wash. I drove around the car wash building and noticed the driver was wearing an Audi sweater so I parked and proceeded to ask him questions about the car. He informed me that it was the Audi R8 which I had not yet seen. The car had european plates and was in Las Vegas for press photo shoots and reviews. As I was talking to the the guy 2 more R8's pulled up to get washed! The guy said that the cars were going to be in the US for 4 months then go back to Germany. The guys driving the cars were obviously employed by Audi but they all lived in Germany and spoke little english. This was one of the guys first time in the US! The crazy thing was they were washing these cars in the drive through car wash at the gas station!!! Come to find out after doing more research on the car after I got home that Audi is only producing 15 cars per day and they are going to sell these in the US for over 100K!!! They are not going to be available in the US until late 07 in limited availability. I found out that the R8's are the only car that has All LED headlights, no xenon. Don't get me wrong, I still love my E60 but this was pretty cool to see 3 Audi R8's in the same place at a gas station car wash! I had my cell phone camera and took some photos of the cars. I apologize for the poor quality but there not that bad.

525iSE

I saw one of those in Thailand already. It was being sold at a small used car garage, but they also had a few brand new cars and the R8 was among the few. I didn't ask about the price, just looked around it, and it was pretty nice, although I didn't notice the ALL LED headlights, I thought they were just ordinary xenons. Well nice cars anyways!!

AC_S5

Wow that's nice, thanks for sharing.

I don't think it will be a good idea to give these car to valet parking huh?

BetterMakeWay

Indeed nice. What's bmw's competitor for this?! I really can't see one and in this case bmw should really start to act...

0700700

All the cars have Bi-Xenon lights, the LED option will be offered as an upgrade only starting from August 2007...

And dont tell me otherwise, cause i got the damn ordering guide in front of me

0700700

M6 CSL if/when it arrives and also the Z9, otherwise for the time being just the M6...

typical competitors are the Carrera S and Maserati Coupe Gransport


I just went and specced one with my Audi dealer it costs 131000euro base (m6 is 125500base) ... ouch

heezy545i

http://microsites.audi.com/audir8/ht...ex.php?lang=en

Lovely car, but for 100K, I'd get a 997 GT3 for sure.

About a 6 months ago, the projected price was around 80K for the V8 (which comes from the RS4) equipped R8. I was hoping to see the V10 from the gallardo in the R8 at the 100K price point.

At 80K, Audi would eat the sales of the e92 M3, GTR and whatever else, but I guess they have their sites aimed higher.

katheikia

With that price this car will flop, just like the BMW Z8...Who are they kidding, I would much rather have a Porsche 997 GT3...

Centurion

Yes, this car is a beauty.
I also agree that it's not priced competitively. I recall Winterkorn (Audi chairman) said this car is being produced as a rival to Porsche, yet I don't recall him specifying which P car model.
The head lights pictured above are Xenons. As already mentioned, the all LED headlight assembly is an option. A see-through engine cover is an option as well.

Enjoy...

swajames

Not so sure. For example, every single R8 allocated to the UK (where the car is more expensive than here in the US) sold immediately.