Supercar ownership doesn’t come cheap. It almost doesn’t matter if you can save up the lump sum required to buy a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, because that’s just the start of your expenditure. You have to be able to keep the car going, and that can come at an almighty cost. As one reader wrote in to tell us, that’s precisely the experience they had of owning Audi’s halo model.
The story comes to us from Kevin, who happens to be a member of our fine website. As one of the perks of membership, he was entitled to a drawing of his car for his birthday, and he’d asked for a picture of his 2015 Audi R8 V8. He’d ordered it in Sepang Blue Matte Pearl, with a gated manual transmission and a brown leather interior. A lovely combination! And yet, he now had misgivings about choosing that car as the subject of his portrait. But why!?
Well, Kevin and the Audi had an interesting relationship that was anything but smooth sailing at times. He ended up racking up some mighty high bills and eventually parted with the car in incredibly disappointing circumstances. It’s a cautionary tale of what you should prepare for ahead of supercar ownership.
Taking Delivery
Having ordered his R8 in 2014, Kevin took delivery in February of the following year. The car lived in New York City, and Kevin found it to be an amazing vehicle. And yet, just a few months later, the traffic the city is renowned for would take its toll.
Kevin was rear-ended in traffic by the driver of a minivan who wasn’t paying attention. From a glance, the damage looked minor, but apparently, that wasn’t the case. A huge repair bill was on the table for a car with just over 3000 miles on the clock. That’s just the way it goes sometimes because nothing on a supercar comes cheap.
The car was sent to Audi Manhattan for repair, with the final invoice hitting a mighty $44,069.98. Much of that was covered by Geico Insurance on behalf of the minivan driver, with Kevin stuck paying $6,387.65 out of pocket. “I don’t recall why I apparently paid $6K,” he says, but it’s easy to understand. 2015 was a simpler time. Inflation was stable, Kid Rock had just released Ain’t Enough Whisky and Anna Kendrick was captivating audiences on the silver screen in Mr. Right [Ed note: While I appreciate Ms. Kendrick’s style, that’s a terrible movie – MH]. Nobody was fretting over a few thousand dollars here or there.
In any case, Kevin was pleased to have his car back, and was enjoying it once again to great effect. And yet, the odometer would only rack up another 1,000 miles before turmoil struck again.
What happened this time? Well, Kevin tells it better than I could. “The parking lot attendant takes it off a lift to get a selfie, forgets it’s a manual, and lurches it into a concrete column,” he explains. The car was sent back in for another repair, once again in the realm of $50,000 according to insurance documents viewed by The Autopian. Again, by virtue of the lot attendant being at fault, the garage’s insurance covered the repair.
By this point, Kevin had only had the car for about a year and it had already been in for repairs twice. And yet, he’s able to take a light-hearted view of what went down. “There are apparently only two first-gen Audi R8 frame straightening jigs in America,” he says. “While mine was probably on the same one twice, I like to imagine it’s unique in having been on both of them.”
Happier Days
Bless the car gods, because Kevin finally got some respite. From 2016 to 2022, the R8 was able to mostly stay out of trouble. In that time, he went through three sets of Michelin Sport 4S tires and three sets of rotors and pads. The car also needed an idler pulley replaced and a clutch slave cylinder. Over this period, the car was rigorously maintained at the dealership according to Kevin, having had around ten oil changes during that time.
Update: Kevin tells us he also believes the brake slave cylinder went, which could have ruined the clutch by spraying brake fluid all over it. He also notes having to replace the magnetic ride shocks once.
You can fault us for this, but there’s not a lot to this story when it comes to the good times. Yeah, owning an R8 is dope. Kevin loved it. Of course he did. But you already knew that, everybody knows that. We’re focusing on the difficulties because that’s where the pain is. That’s what holds us back from owning supercars, almost as much as the price of entry. And that’s what this story is about.
So why mention the oil changes? In October last year, calamity struck with its greatest force yet. Having moved to New Hampshire, Kevin had a road trip in mind. “I decided to drive the R8 down to New York,” says Kevin. “I’m halfway through Connecticut, and as I downshift, I hear a sound resembling a chain snapping, and my engine dies.”
David Tracy might tell you that a timing chain is god’s gift to engines, but that wasn’t the case for this R8. Kevin was almost certain the chain had snapped, with awful consequences. Regular oil changes should prevent one from snapping for hundreds of thousands of miles, but it seemingly wasn’t the case here. “I am aware it is an interference engine, so I’m pretty sure what happened at this point,” he says. “Thankfully, I was able to coast safely the mile or two to an exit.”
Stranded, Kevin needed to get the R8 towed, but alas, it was a Sunday. Few tow companies were open, because cars never break on weekends, right? Those that were open weren’t willing to tow his car the 60 miles to Audi’s Greenwich dealership.
Eventually, a passerby told him to try a place called Mal’s Towing, which advised him it would be a three- to four-hour wait. “I say, ‘I’m not in a very strong negotiating position here, so sounds good,'” says Kevin. Once picked up, it took a further three hours to make it to the Audi dealership because traffic was just that bad.
Despite the disaster in the engine bay, Kevin wasn’t worried. “During all of this, I was saying to myself… ‘Thank God I bought the 10/100 drivetrain warranty.'” He figured that even if Audi kicked up a fuss, his insurance company would fight the battle for him.
Alas, though, the fairytale wasn’t to be. Kevin had asked for a 10/100 warranty—one that covered 10 years or 100,000 miles. Instead, he’d had to settle for the maximum offered, which was just 7 years or 84,000 miles. That had expired in February 2023, or roughly ten months before the engine grenaded itself. At this time, Audi had also confirmed the worst. There were metal flakes everywhere and the engine was quite dead.
Epilogue
Replacing the engine with a fresh V8 was a $50,000 proposition. In the immediate aftermath of the failure, he was pragmatic but disappointed. “Given it seems to be a complete POS, this is not an attractive proposition,” Kevin told us last year. “After all the travails of this vehicle, I think the universe is clearly telling me to give up and maybe get something else.” He expressed a deep love for the car but wondered if that was enough. “Despite it being a POS reliability-wise, I still love it,” he mused. “It is the best looking and driving car I’ve ever had, and there aren’t a lot of other options for gated shifters.”
Ideas of an LS swap or a V10 upgrade came and went; ultimately, Kevin couldn’t make a viable case for hanging on to the car. “I sold it to an R8 tech for approximately its Bring a Trailer value with an engine, minus replacement cost,” he says. “A good deal for both sides.” The new owner eventually sent Kevin a picture of the combustion chamber and piston once the engine was torn down, justifying his decision.
The engine was munted, as an Australian might say. That’s slang for wrecked or destroyed, and it certainly applies here. The top surface of the piston is mashed to all hell and has been punched right through, with the top of the connecting rod is visible through the carnage. You can actually see a valve embedded in the piston itself.
The head is chewed to pieces as well. It’s clear that the valves and piston collided, and hard—to a degree that would require a total engine replacement if you ever intended to use the car again.
Kevin notes that for all its merits, the car compared unfavorably to his C5 Corvette, which achieved 60,000 miles without issue. “This engine versus a Chevy pushrod V8 is a perfect metaphor for why Germany lost World War II,” he explains. Some might argue that a lack of key raw materials and poor military strategy played a larger role than unreliable advanced engine designs in Germany’s downfall, but it’s easy to understand Kevin’s point. Chevrolet can build a V8 that’s cost-effective, powerful, and long-lasting. In contrast, German automakers often only hit one out of those three.
We’re glad to hear that Kevin was able to enjoy the gated manual for a few good years before everything fell in a hot metal heap. As a rule, if you’re going into supercar ownership, do it with your eyes wide open. Have a pragmatic attitude and an open checkbook, because driving high-end metal comes with a hefty price tag.
Image credits: Kevin S
I do find the image of that piston surface compelling. It looks like a well sculpted unhappy face in the middle of ooooch.
SUPER reliable OHC timing chains strike again…. literally. 🙂
This is why I’m glad my SAAB 96 has a two-stroke engine. With no valves there’s no… Oh, right, the cylinder ports open into the crankcase, where the bearings are, or at least where they’re supposed to be:
https://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LTH13/0312-Thunderhill_24_Hours_of_LeMons_2013-UG.jpg
I’m curious what the mileage was on the car vs when the timing chain was scheduled to be replaced?
I ask because last year I had to replace the differential on my Mercedes-Benz because of the lack of fluid changes despite the car being 100% maintained by Mercedes-Benz – yet none were required ever, according to the maintenance schedule.
Only the AMG variants called for fluid changes every 50K miles.
Oh yeah, many vehicles have “lifetime” manual transmission and/or differential oil replacement schedules when it should really be 50-60k.
For an expensive Audi, 50k *is* the expected lifetime.
I’d expect that it would last a very long time, and that perhaps you’d have to change a tensioner now and then or something, but forever is what comes to my mind. I mean, my GMC Motorhome has TH425 transmission with a chain as part of the drive train, and I’ve never heard of one failing, and it transmits every foot pound of torque the 455 Olds motor produces. So, either they got too clever, or? With Germans, the too clever is a major risk (I’m fond of BMW Motorcycles).
I don’t see it as being a “complete POS” reliability-wise as I only see one story in this full picture that was anything engine related. Granted it was a blown engine but it seems more tough luck than “complete” POS. I also love that his steering wheel shares the airbag cap and infotainment controls with my lowly Q3 lol!
Timing chains in non-German cars are usually a huge improvement over belts. Not sure why they can’t get that or so many other things right (the funniest one to me is DI. I remember being warned about my mk3 Focus because German car owners insisted DI needs regular walnut blastings and witch doctor blessings to prevent carbon build up from reducing the engine to an asthmatic lawnmower and the HPFP can fail, taking out the drive lobe on the cam that then sends metal throughout the engine, but I did absolutely nothing to the Ford and it ran like new when it was totaled with over 200k miles. The funny part comes from the Germans pioneering DI in their aircraft engines in WW2—yes, combat aircraft were probably anticipated to have lifespans measured in hours—but in 70 years, you’d think they’d have figured something out.)
I can’t believe that bumper tap could be $50k. Even if those body panels are carbon fiber, that’s absurd and either down to obscene gouging or horrendously poor engineering unfit for a road-intended car where this kind of stuff happens. What an utter POS.
This made me think of Jason’s post about Federal 5mph bumpers. Neither of those bumps could have been much more than 2 or 3mph.
Same here. I don’t miss the looks, but they were great for shrugging off everyday BS. Doesn’t help that, not only did they dump impact bumpers, but the plastic covers are thin as paper and they pack the hell out of the space behind them with fragile parts. My ’90 Legacy’s plastic bumpers were about 3x thicker than the modern cars I’ve seen and those shrugged off quite a lot itself and there was nothing but styrofoam and a beam behind them (also: it had 8 f’n tow hooks/tie downs and now cars might have those stupid screw-in things if you’re lucky). It got rear-ended by a Chrysler Concorde once and not even a scrape on the paint (it was raining, which helped), while the other car needed a new headlight and bumper cover at a minimum. Of course, the Chrysler would have needed nothing if it had impact bumper instead of the standout styling features of a fishface grille and amoeba headlights.
The latest minivans in Japan have low floors = low bumpers and usually a minimum amount of clearance from the rear of the flimsy bumper to the sheet metal of the hatch. The upshot is a lot of dented hatches.
It’s a good thing that R8 didn’t have a timing belt. ‘Cuz then it would be unreliable.
ヾ(＾∇＾)
The biggest lesson here seems to be don’t live in NYC and buy a car like this. These cars don’t do well in traffic and need space to run. Friend of mine has an R8 and absolutely loves it, and has had very few issues with it. Granted, he’s put a lot of money into performance upgrades, but not much into actual repairs.
But where else is a Wall Street bro gonna live?
That piston looks molten, like it literally melted somewhere in the cycle, gobbled up a valve, solidified, and kept crashing and smashing hard enough to shatter all over again. Yikes.
So the youtube guys who rebuild an accident damaged R8 for 12500$ may not be telling the truth ?
I don’t know why you think that. The YouTube guys are only counting $12k in parts. The $40k repair bill most likely includes $12k in parts and $28k in labor and specialized tools.
Whenever a timing chain fails it’s definitely not perceived as a gift from God unless you’re one of those people that think that kids with terminal cancer are being punished by god for their sins…
Regular oil changes won’t really help if the timing chain is convoluted all over the front of the engine, and especially since in an Audi I think there are three of them.
*4(!) chains on back of the engine, as in the flywheel side
It’s only the front of the engine if you’re French
That’s right! Too many, that’s for sure.
Certainly not a Gumball Rally vehicle
Haha it’s funny as hell to see this article after David Tracy shit on timing belts. Some karma was involved.
Well his main problem is living in NYC and buying about the most fragile car imaginable. You dont drive a nice car in NYC, you get a beater Corolla and dont care about how dented/scratched up it gets.
The R8 is known to blow out the upper front strut tower if you hit a big pothole. Like it cracks the welds and bends the whole front aluminum subassembly. Totals out the whole car cause to fix correctly means you are basically replacing the whole front 1/3rd of the car, from the firewall forward.
Figured it was going to be this issue or the v8 eating a timing chain when I clicked on the link. That audi v8 is a real shit sandwich.
I’ve been to NYC a few times over the last year or so and have been very surprised to see a number of supercars I’ve seen on the street. Not a lot, but I was a bit shocked to see any.
I’ve seen regular cars in NYC that have off-road style push bumpers. And they weren’t installed for off-roading.
IIRC that got sorted out in 2012 or so, later cars have that part of the frame severely reinforced.
Whatever problems that 2015 R8 had, this wasn’t one of them.
I’ve lived in the city (chinatown), all of my siblings do (or did), both my parents did…
This is the real answer. Even if I had lots of money, I’d never get something like this for NYC or any major metro area. Between road conditions, winters, other drivers using their bumpers in too much of a literal sense when parking, and people sideswiping cars and leaving the scene (as me how I know!)… just get something that fits your needs, doesn’t have low profile tires, and if it gets hit you won’t care too much.
Much of that was covered by Geico Insurance on behalf of the minivan driver, with Kevin stuck paying $6,387.65 out of pocket. “I don’t recall why I apparently paid $6K,”
I’m not sure either. I wouldn’t tolerate this if I were declared not-at-fault for the collision. I’d either continue to negotiate the settlement unless it was entirely covered (or close to it), or have my insurance pursue the difference. Failing that, I’d take the driver to small claims court for the difference. The whole, “Oh, he has a supercar, he can afford it,” line is a load of BS.
Yeah this stuck out to me too; does he not have his own insurance?
This is the point of underinsured motorist coverage. If the other guy can’t pay, your insurance does.
A sibling just learned the hard way that under/uninsured motorist coverage only applies to things like human injury/medical. Not to damage to the car.
So when an underinsured driver hit his car recently, he still had to pay out of pocket for his car repairs (at the very least, his own comprehensive deductible).
That’s not generally true. Underinsured/uninsured should cover property damage (unless you have selected only injury coverage on that), though it will often require you to pay a deductible. When my car was struck in a parking lot by an unknown vehicle, there was a specific hit and run deductible.
Auto insurance varies tremendously from state-to-state. UM/UIM in Michigan, for example, has nothing to do with collision.
Source: Am lawyer in Michigan.
I’m from Pennsylvania, and yeah, I was trying to dig through my texts to find my conversation with that sibling on the specifics…but I’m going to defer to your statement here.
Fair. The important thing is to actually read through all of your insurance policies and make sure they cover what you expect them to (and, perhaps, run across unexpected coverage). You don’t want to expect coverage you don’t have when you need it.
It’s also important to look at all optional coverages and decide what you need. Because minimum required coverages of any sort tend to be a joke.
In Virginia, uninsured/underinsured covers property damage.
Source: I live there and made a claim once when my car was hit in a parking lot. I was still on my parents insurance policy and when the check came, they kept it! Guess I’d probably do the same thing to my kids.
As someone involved in a hit and run rear ending I can offer some context here, at least as it applies in GA.
I did one thing right at least and waited for the police so I could get a proper report. Because I did my insurance covered me under the uninsured motorist policy which does not carry a deductible cost like collision or comprehensive coverage.
I’m guessing the situation here was different and they didn’t wait for the cops to file a report. Would NYC PD even show up for that?
Also my coverage did bite me in the end. USAA only has one hourly rate they will pay for painting and paint matching. If you have a Corolla or a Porsche Boxster (my car) they only pay out one rate. I was insistent on using one of my trusted shops so I was out of pocket about $600. Not terrible in the total scheme but I still dropped USAA insurance. They are great if you just keep average cars but if you have something higher end I don’t think their coverage fits.
I was in WA for mine, and my coverage was specific about having a deductible on hit-and-run vs no deductible on normal uninsured/underinsured (I assume because they don’t find someone to go after for the money). I did file a police report and Progressive sent an adjuster out to look at my car. It was a Focus, so the shop they sent me to was plenty nice for it. That’s shitty to hear they’d only pay the one rate. USAA has a good reputation, so I would expect better.
Late to the party, but reading through the comments this struck me as extraordinary. I will never, ever understand the home of capitalism.
As a humble Australian, this is the short (and with some inaccuracies) summary of our car insurance landscape:
Third Party Personal Insurance – Compulsory.
No registration for you unless this in place. Designed to cover injury costs for anyone you run into. There is also a government fund to cover the costs (funded by a levy on premiums) in the event of an uninsured car hitting you.
Third Party Property – Not compulsory
Does what it says on the tin. It’s what I have covering my old junker. If I run my car into a Ferrari dealership and destroy 8 cars, it’ll cover that. There may be a limit on cover, but it will be >$20m.
Also, if a numpty runs into me, the insurance company will help me get that sorted out with the numpty’s insurer.
Sometimes a Fire and Theft extension is available, so they’ll cover your car for those two risks, just not accident damage.
Comprehensive – Not compulsory
Self-evident. If someone runs into me or I run into them I contact the insurance company and they take care of the rest. If I was at-fault I pay my excess (deductible), if I was not at-fault and can provide the details of the at-fault party, I don’t even pay the excess (deductible).
Insurers usually figure it out between themselves (sometimes on a knock for knock basis) or if the driver didn’t have any of the voluntary insurances it’s up to the insurer as to whether they wish to pursue them for costs.
So Australians can still dig a financial hole for themselves if they’re either too poor or stupid to have either of the voluntary type policies and cause an accident.
I consider Third Party Property to be the minimum cover you should have, but our system sounds much less byzantine then what goes on in the USA!
Yikes, it’s not just your health insurance that’s borked.
Yeah, if the other driver’s insurance didn’t cover the whole thing, my uninsured/underinsured motorist should kick in. The insurance company can go after the other driver (or not, if they don’t think it’s worthwhile), and I should never have to go after them myself.
I wondered the same. Perhaps the R8 owner’s insurance reimbursed the out-of-pocket cost but it just wasn’t elaborated in the article?
When some minimum-coverage jabroni totalled my brand new car I just claimed against my own insurance and let them deal with it.
I’ve lived in a no-fault state my entire adult life. I figured that the minivan driver had some kind of budget policy that left her on the hook for anything after a coverage limit, and our buddy with the R8 paid so he could get his car back instead of waiting for the other driver to not come up with the difference.
I don’t mean that as a knock against people who live paycheck to paycheck. When my wife and I were starting out, the oft-cited $500 unexpected expense was something that we struggled to work into our meager budget. My nostalgia for those early days when we were still figuring stuff out and our daughter was a baby instead of a moody preteen is clouded by the stress of knowing that a routine life event could completely f*ck us.
I expect it was a situation where, by all rights, he SHOULDN’T have had to pay, but he just wanted his car back as quickly as possible and was probably just frustrated by the whole situation and wrote a check for $6k to get it all settled and done with with no further back and forth
I thought I had bad luck with my Civic, but this is rough. I never had to pay out of pocket for anything, and didn’t have the thing completely fail. I guess a parking lot attendant wanting a selfie is a problem limited to supercars and other interesting vehicles, but damn…
Not completely surprised by the V8 grenading itself. The V10’s were quite a bit more reliable on the first gen R8’s.
I’m just heartened that the minivan driver has enough property damage insurance to cover much of the first hit.
NYS minimum is $10,000.
Ask me how I know.
My parents always drilled into me that I needed well over the minimum coverage. Some of that comes from the couple of times that my dad’s commercial insurance (log truck) had to cover a significant chunk of repairs from vehicles hitting him without enough insurance to cover damages to his truck (I’m sure the insurance company went after whatever they could from those drivers, too).
Washington minimums are 10k property, 25k per person bodily injury/death, 50k per accident bodily injury/death. Idaho, where I am now, is the same for injury, but 15k property. That’s not enough for any of those categories.
In Alberta I think the mins were 100k upped to 250, I carry 1mm and the extra amount is not much, and this in not a super litigious place
I recently upped my property damage coverage to $250k after realizing it only added a few bucks to my premium. There are so many $75k+ EVs on the road these days that can be totaled in relatively minor accidents. It wouldn’t be that hard to blow through $50-100k in coverage these days.
I am impressed that another vehicle could damage a log truck
Damage is easy. Not much can total one, but a Mustang going way too fast and sliding into the truck and spinning to hit it repeatedly can do enough damage that it’s in question.
The biggest problem is all the bits add up. If you’re replacing a fuel tank, a cracked rail, a fender, the side steps, a couple wheels, mudflap hangers, and all the lights that were struck (and, usually, some electrical with them), that bill gets expensive fast. I don’t remember if that one hit his drop axle, but that’s not that hard to damage enough to require replacement, either. Sure, a minor frontal collision might just bend the bumper, and that’s just bending it back out, but there’s a lot of stuff elsewhere that gets expensive.
Another thing he learned about insurance: his insurance company considered a tree falling directly in front of him a collision. If he had braked just a little slower or the tree fell just a little later, it would have been an act of god (and he’d probably be dead).
Maybe it was a log truck tow truck.
I’m not an Audi tech, but I don’t think the top of the piston is supposed to look like some kind of metal oatmeal.
Oatmetal
Steel-cut.
Breaksfast
This made me LOL
Do you get your RDA of minerals from Oatmetal?
Oatmetal, sounds like an Amish heavy metal band.
I think my old housemate used to play keys for Oatmetal.
This thread rocks. You all rock.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a valve embedded sideways in a piston like that. Reminds me of the Dodge Hellcat or Demon supercharger appliques. Or like the T1000 reforming out of metal goo.
I read T1000 and immediately the image of a shitty Chevette clone rising from metal glop appeared.
Oh man that’s bleak. Those first two are terrible luck, but at the same time it sounds like a demise of Audi’s own making. I’d be so pissed if I serviced the car at the dealer for years and it still managed to grenade itself
A car that need $$,$$$ in repairs in pitifully low speed impacts and an engine that rips itself to pieces just outside of warranty.
I’m not seeing the “super” in this “supercar”.
Super (Expensive) Car? Super (PITA) Car? Super (I feel so conflicted about how much I love and hate this) Car?
and the fact that it had to go on a straightening jig after each of those low speed collisions?
Even if it isn’t twisted, they always jig cars like this just to be sure. After a particularly nasty roadworks cost $8k (after wholesale discounts) on the Parsh, we discussed jigging it to be sure it wasn’t twisted, as there was some impact between the front tub and the road.. They didn’t think it was strictly necessary as the car aligned perfectly and they have some laser jig at the collision place that can guesstimate….
Anywho, estimate for jigging the car the “correct Porsche way” was … $33,000. They have to remove everything on the front of the car, leaving just a bare tub to mount it. We decided to note the damage and there’s a 3 year statute on the claim with the contractors’ insurance.
Given the low speed of these collisions and that the bumper *should* have absorbed most if not all the impact needing a jig, even “just to be sure” is ridiculous.
That’s not even getting into the price. $33k? THAT is WAY above and beyond the giggle test.
I guess that expensive Rivian body damage story was not as unusual as I thought!
This has got to be bad luck. I’m in a few Audi circles and I’ve never heard of issues like this on the CNDA. The R8 is one of the most reliable exotics you can buy. I mean they have their issues just like anything else, but I don’t believe they’re known for munching engines. And what a spec. You cannot go wrong with Sepang. What an incredibly crappy situation for Kevin. I’d probably go running to an LC500 if I was him.
If only it were possible to buy supercar looks and performance with American pushrod engines….
I’ve owned my Viper for almost 9 years. I’ve bought two new sets of tires at ~$1500 each (could have made do with one replacement if I didn’t track the car). I change the oil once a year myself for $60. I’ve done a few miscellaneous maintenance items like trans fluid, spark plugs, and air filters over the years for a couple hundred bucks combined. I had one oil pressure sensor fail early on that might have been $300 to fix if it was out of warranty.
Even if I had done all the work at the dealership as this unfortunate gentleman seems to have done, I estimate my ownership costs in 9 years would be under $5000.
A better way is possible!
A better way is possible!
Start with proper 5 mph bumpers and everything between made from something better than tinfoil.
A Viper is cool but it’s no R8.
An R8 is cool but it’s no Viper. 😉
Nah, I get it but I truly think they’re equally iconic.
It depends what you want out of it I suppose.
It’s more exclusive, faster in a straight line, faster around a racetrack, and already attracts more attention than I like.
I agree it probably won’t help you pull as many numbers on Tik Tok though.
A viper is not faster around a track than an r8.
You are just dead wrong there.
Even the V10 is much slower than a Gen V pretty much everywhere (30 seconds on the N-ring!). A V8 would be slower than that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nordschleife_lap_times
The ACR runs with 918 Spyders not fucking R8s.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/news/a27254/the-dodge-viper-is-going-out-on-a-high-note-setting-13-track-records/
An R8 V10 is slower in C/D Lightning Lap testing than a Lamborghini SUV lmao. A V8 R8 is slower than a Golf R or a Mustang Ecoboost.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a23319884/lightning-lap-times-historical-data/
Find me one track that a V8 R8 beats any Gen V, not just an ACR, and I’ll delete this post. But you can’t, because you’re wrong.
I suspect a Viper is faster than an R8 in the hands of a professional driver, and slower in the hands of someone who knows how to drive but doesn’t have race training and values their life.
I suspect this statement was made by someone whose perceptions of Vipers was set by 1995 and never changed. There’s basically nothing the same between the driving experience of a Gen 1 and Gen 5.
The linked C/D times are run by amateurs.
Yeah at least it runs some of the time
Today you can even buy a used mid engine corvette. It’s not my favorite. But it’s a mighty fine bargain.
Nothing is without its issues: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c8-general-discussion/4700928-c8-problems.html
That said, any forum, subreddit, owners group or other will tend to blow issues out of proportion, because people with cars that work fine don’t take to the internet and start babbling about how perfect it is and nothing is broken. For every vocal owner with a shitty C8, R8, Ford GT or whatever, there’s many more out there not speaking up because their car just works.
Pantera!