"By Denis Droppa
If ever there was a car that clears a path through traffic then it's Audi's new R8. Most drivers spotting Ingolstadt's mid-engined beast in their mirrors quickly move over to let it pass, startled by its sheer presence.
Can't blame them, given that it car arrives on a scene with a flourish like Ursula Andress or Halle Berry emerging bikini-clad from the waves in a James Bond movie.
Every angle of the aluminium-bodied R8 brings its own highlight. You can stare for ages at that front with its low, wide stance and its always-on LED "eyeliners" on the headlights.
You can spend even longer regarding the midships V8 under its glass cover, more like an art exhibit than a machine that turns petrol into power. There's not an errant bolt or wire to be seen in this Teutonic display of neatness and symmetry set among sporty carbon fibre and steel-mesh panels.
Enter the cabin and plug yourself into one of the two bucket seats and you'll be greeted by a similar sense of high tech meets art. It's all stitched leather, carbon fibre and my personal favourite: a Ferrari-style aluminium gear shifter poking out of an exposed double H-gate.
All right, so it looks worth every cent of its R1.2-million asking price, but how does it go?
Pretty much with all guns firing, though there is a but... feeding the power to all four wheels is the same roaring, high-revving V8 used in the Audi RS4 "family" car. It produces a not-to-be-sneezed-at 309kW and 420Nm. Very good so far.
The non-turbo engine has a strong and linear power delivery that rewards pressure on the pedal with a satisfying surge. At higher revs it's a rush of adrenalin as the growl and g-forces rise in unison. Still good. Perhaps a slightly louder growl would be welcome as the sound doesn't really reach the cabin - but there's nothing subtle about the audio on offer to outsiders who hear it roaring past.
Changing gear is a delight in the manual and adds a purist touch of sports-car charisma lacking in the two-pedalled tiptronic. Moving that manual lever through the exposed gate is like cocking an expensive rifle; it finds its slots with a satisfyingly positive feel and metallic "clink". All just as it should be.
Audi claims a sea-level 0-100km/h sprint time of 4.6sec for the R8 and the test car clocked 5.8 at Gauteng altitude and this is where the "but" comes in because that puts the R8 neck-and-neck with its more soberly-clothed RS4 cousin and BMW's M3, which I find a bit of a problem for a car that looks like it's just come straight from the Le Mans grid.
" More than 300km/h