The ultimate supercar guides: the Audi R8

It was called the Audi Quattro and was the first contemporary vehicle fitted with four-wheel-drive purely for its performance advantage.

The boffins at Audi realised four-wheel-drive allowed their super saloon to grip and go harder than any other rival.

When Audi entered the Quattro into the World Rally Championship in 1983 it dominated the leaderboard and sent the opposition back to the drawing board.

Fast forward 15 years and Audi have fitted its Quattro four-wheel-drive system to almost all of its range-topping models.

For the next few years, Audi concentrated on practical and luxurious saloons and coupes.

After cleaning up in prototype sports car races with the alien-looking Audi R10 racing car, and dominating the Le Mans 24 hour race for year after year, Audi decided the gap between its racing and road cars needed to be filled.

The one thing Audi’s line-up lacked was a true sports car.

At the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show Audi stunned the motoring world with the Le Mans Quattro concept car – the first hint at the Audi R8 – and Audi’s fastest ever car.

Three years later, the Audi R8 was complete and took centre stage at the Paris car show. It was immediately apparent the car was a technological tour de force.

And at £77,000 the Audi R8 was priced as a direct rival to the traditional yet brilliant Porsche 911.

But it brought a bazooka to the gunfight – featuring a 4.2 litre V8 with 420bhp, the most advanced Quattro four-wheel-drive ever devised and a newly developed magnetic suspension able to adjust to the road in a fraction of a second.

In the hands of Audi testers and a small number of journalists, the first R8s were proven to accelerate from 0-62mph in just 4.6 seconds.

The Audi R8 was hailed as the most desirable Audi of all time and a match for any supercar which came its way.

And the Audi R8 story is far from over. We recently reported a V12 diesel Audi R8 is being developed with 500bhp and 737lb/ft of pulling power.

When it takes to the road Audi will have created the first ever diesel supercar – capable of a top speed “well over” 186mph.

View more pictures of the Audi R8