There are few cars in recent motoring history that have generated as much media hype, or engendered such feelings of polemic as Audi’s R8.  Its super-modern styling, straight out of I Robot, reasonable (for a sports car) price tag, Audi reliability and market profile have ensured that even the most indolent of motoring dolts knew this car was arriving well before the first panel was beaten, but is this reputation justified where the R8 is concerned?

Recently I’ve been looking to replace my much loved, but a tad long in the tooth, four-year old Porsche 911.  I hadn’t considered the R8, but I was in the Audi dealer helping an acquaintance choose a new Audi A3, when the dealer suggested I take the R8 for a day to see if I could be tempted to bat for the other reliable German car team. I guess 911 owners are on a hit list of punters whose fidelity will be tested by Audi in a bid to generate sales in an already crowded niche – the upmarket sports car.

A few days later I turned up with a friend to try the R8 and of course was instantly drawn to the look of the thing. Low slung, wide, with LED lights and a glass engine cover, you cannot fail to notice this car.  It is an impressive sight and made my dirty old Carrera, covered in dead flies, seagull crap (and even a bit of hapless pigeon), look positively retro in comparison.

Getting into the car you are ensconced in typical German quality.  Supportive leather seats that suck you back into them, a very wide and open view of the road ahead, simple controls with a heavy weight and positive ‘click’ to them. These are the things that differentiate German engineering from the also-ran cheap plasticky rubbish the rest of the world churns out. Gunning the engine elicits that warm V8 warble beloved of small boys and men the world over, a quick check of the large rear-view and we’re off.

This car contains the manual gearbox, there is of course a paddle-shift variant, and suffering from a long-term disability caused by some very low quality motorbike riding a decade ago, I was not particularly relishing the thought of another sports clutch on my poor ankle. I needn’t have worried; the clutch is incredibly light with smooth engagement, its operation far easier than my 911, or indeed any family saloon I had experienced. Around town it felt like driving one of Audi’s consummate rep-mobiles, apart from the looks we were getting. This car is a definite head turner, men stare at it, small boys ‘vroom vroom’, teenagers watch agog and women ignore it. The R8 is definitely a boy’s toy.

I am not a fan of four-wheel drive cars since owning an Evo 8 a while back. Poor turn in, a tendency to under-steer and a feeling that the car was doing everything for me meant that was a short ownership experience. I was anticipating that same under-steering and vagueness in the R8’s driven front end. However, the 70/30 rear-biased power delivery ensures power over-steer in abundance and the steering is nimble while providing lots of information. From the first roundabout the car was nicely tail-happy in a fun, but non-threatening way. Power delivery is smooth, but urgent from 2000rpm to the 8000rpm redline.

The car is a technical marvel and has all the key features of a world class sports car:  Low centre of gravity, wide track, huge levels of grip, rasping engine note, rapid acceleration and the all important mid-engine design.

After a few hundred miles I had the measure of the R8 and was really getting into the swing of things. This car really is in your face. Aggressive stance, squatting into every corner, would power-slide on every exit, if you let it, and when the needle was racing for the red line, there was that howling cacophony behind you. As I got more and more used to the car the traction control was starting to kick in, albeit somewhat early I felt, spoiling my fun. Whilst the balance of the car is completely neutral, I was not quite willing to disable the traction control, being as it wasn’t my car yet.  The brakes provide ample fade-free stopping power, but suffer from that virus of most modern cars – too much servo assistance. They feel grabby and make subtle pedal modulation nigh on impossible. The gear ratios are very close; giving a 0-60 time that feels quicker than my 911, but with third gear running out of steam by 90mph, the 0-100mph time being somewhat slower.

Put yet another tank of fuel in and ratchet up even more hardcore miles, and the things that at first feel fun start to dull, and at times, become annoying.  Overtly invasive traction control, overly intrusive harsh and mechanical engine note, the very close ratio gear box becoming tiresome after a while, the nimble but overly light-steering starting to make the car feel like a toy as the day draws to a close. The ever so grabby and annoying brakes reminding me of the Golf R32 I had borrowed from a friend a while back.  At one particularly annoying moment, whilst carrying a lot of speed down a complex B-road, a siren went off in the cockpit. Backing off I started looking around the cabin for clues… Was there a blowout imminent, was the thing bereft of oil, was it simply about to explode due to the abuse I had meted out on it? No, the windscreen washer fluid was low.  Excuse me Mr Audi, but maybe this is the sort of thing you put in your A3’s to wake up sales-reps who fall asleep on the M1, but in what is supposed to be a sports car for the discerning driver?

That last episode just about sums the car up. It’s all showroom bravado with no subtleties and in your face styling that tries oh so hard. But in reality, the R8 is another rep-mobile, all twinkling lights, nanny-state traction control and washer fluid klaxons. A proper sports car with pedigree it is not. Maybe in generation three or four it will be, even the next I am sure will contain the lessons learned from this first, admirable and technically marvellous attempt, but until then it cannot compete with the established regime.

A good way to decide if you want to buy a car or not is to simply sleep on it. If you can’t get it out of your head then it is the right choice. However, I had forgotten about the R8 the very next day.  The 911 stays….that is until my 997 turns up.

By the way, thanks to Audi for cleaning the dead pigeon out my car.