THE 562BHP R8 PERFORMANCE RWD MAY BE THE lowest rung in Audi’s ladder of mid-engined, ten-cylinder machines, but it’s a supercar alright. The ‘young entrepreneur’ types in the black-with-black-with-black current-shape RS6 knew it as they floored their V8 alongside with a dramatic bellow on the A55 to north Wales; the young lad with his nose pressed up against the smeary rear side-glass of an ageing Nissan Qashqai did too. Same for my neighbours, who congregated around it at the weekend, the point rather belligerently rammed home to them early this morning when Ingolstadt’s finest yelped into life on cold start and I selected Drive as quickly as I dared. It is low and wide, pointy and extravagant, loud, and it screams power and speed even if you don’t know the numbers, such as its £129,725 price tag, or the scope of its abilities. Supercar, I am.
However, this story isn’t really about the R8, but rather an opportunity to find out much more about a bright red American institution currently also making its way to north Wales – a car that over the past 20-or-so racing seasons has been a winner repeatedly on the world stage; a car that for this eighth generation GM decided to move the engine from the front to the middle. The company has also taken the unprecedented step of offering a right-hand-drive version, which while it’s typically British of us to assume has been done to make overtaking easier in the home counties, has a lot to do with selling the car in markets such as Australia and Japan as well.
So this is the new C8 Corvette Stingray, based on an aluminium tub, now screwed and bonded together and incorporating a strong backbone tunnel, powered by a mid-mounted LT2 small block V8 that produces 475bhp and 452lb ft of torque, and delivering drive through a Tremec-designed eight-speed twin-clutch transmission, the only
