‘Iron Man’ Made Audi’s R8 Supercar Famous. Superb Engineering Helped It Redefine the Marque.

At the turn of the 21st Century, Audi was riding high in the racing world. The brand locked up consecutive wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2000, 2001 and 2002 with its R8 endurance racer, leaving competitors like Cadillac and Bentley in the dust. Yet you’d never know how well it was doing in racing to look at its lineup; the closest thing to a sports car the brand had at the time was the TT, which was effectively a VW GTI in Art Deco clothing.

In 2003, in honor of that trio of consecutive wins, Audi decided to celebrate with a concept car. The brand had become known in recent years for fascinating, outlandish concepts: the polished aluminum Rosemeyer that used an early version of the Bugatti Veyron’s engine; the Steppenwolf, a compact crossover that was at least a decade ahead of its time; the Avantissimo, which an A8 station wagon that never came to pass.

Even, so the Le Mans quattro concept revealed at the 2003 Geneva Motor Show was something else entirely. It was drop-dead gorgeous, sure, but Audi concept cars had long boasted spectacular looks. What made it unique was that it didn’t look like a mere flight of fancy; while its LED headlamps, contrast-colored B-pillar “side blade” and supple curves were all eye-catching, the whole design was coherent, realistic.

Part of the reason it looked so ready for prime time was what lay beneath the skin: a space frame chassis shared with the Lamborghini Gallardo that went into production that same year. In fact, the new baby Lambo shared plenty with the concept: not just much of its bones, but also its 5.2-liter V-10 (albeit turbocharged for concept car form) and its six-speed sequential manual gearbox, or SMG.

With such a strong reaction, the concept was soon green-lit; the design was locked, barely changing along the way, and the name changed from “Le Mans” to “R8” in honor of the race car. The finished product was originally announced to debut in 2007, but when the decision came down after the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans that the R8 race car was graying too much to still be competitive, Audi decided to fast-track the road car and bring it out a year early, while the racer was still fresh in everyone’s minds.

The production R8 made its formal debut at the Paris Motor Show in fall 2006, looking all but identical to the concept car that had wowed the world. Fans hoping the twin-turbo V-10 would also come to production were in for a surprise, though; the engine mounted between driver and rear axle was not a Lamborghini-sourced turbo beast, but a slightly modified version of the naturally aspirated 4.2-liter V8 used in the RS 4 of the era, connected to a choice of six-speed SMG or Ferrari-style gated six-speed manual.

Still, its 420 horsepower and 317 lb-ft of torque were more than enough to be competitive with its rivals of the era — especially since, at a base price of $109,000, it was significantly cheaper than the likes of the Gallardo and Ferrari F430 — and the overall package quickly took the motoring world by storm. Road & Track called it “near perfection.” Automobile Magazine named it “Automobile of the Year.” Car and Driver gave it top marks over the iconic Porsche 911 Turbo. Racing legend Jacky Ickx allegedly called it “the best handling road car today.”

But it took a one-two punch of appearances on the screen the following year to launch the car into mainstream adoration. During the 2008 Super Bowl, Audi shocked viewers with a knock-off of The Godfather’s famous horse head scene that demonstrated the new R8 was the centerpiece of Audi’s new message: “old luxury just got put on notice.” Then, a couple months later, the R8 played a supporting role as Tony Stark’s car of choice in the original Iron Man. The movie proved a smash hit — and suddenly, millions upon millions of people were not only aware of Audi’s new sports car, but associated it with the world’s newest superhero sensation. (The tie-up would prove to be a fatefully successful one: Robert Downey Jr.’s Stark would wind up driving R8s in all three Iron Man films and the second Avengers movie, with other Audis playing prominent roles in additional installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.)

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Keen to keep the enthusiasm building, Audi kept rolling out updates. In December 2008, Audi finally gave the R8 the same 5.2-liter V-10 engine as its Gallardo sibling, ramping up power to 518 hp and 391 lb-ft. Less than a year later at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the brand pulled the rings off the V-10-powered drop-top R8 Spyder. A lighter, more powerful and more focused V-10 model called the R8 GT debuted in mid-2010; come early 2011, a V-8 roadster joined the party, followed soon after by an R8 GT Spyder.

Along the way, the R8 also served as the foundation for a couple glimpses into alternate futures. In January 2008, Audi showed off a modified version that it called the R8 V12 TDI concept, which outfitted the supercar with a turbodiesel 12-cylinder much like the one in the brand’s Le Mans racer of the time. Then, in fall 2009, the R8 served as the basis for the E-Tron Concept — a slippery idea of an all-electric sports car. Both ideas were pursued as production possibilities — the electric variant even produced running R8-based prototypes, one of which set an EV lap record at the Nurburgring — but ultimately, neither oil-burner nor electron-powered version was green-lit.

So when the second-generation R8 finally did debut in at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show, it came, once again, packing a gasoline engine. (Technically, Audi did build a handful of second-gen R8 E-Tron EVs, but sold only the barest handful of them, and only in Europe.) As before, it shared its bones with the smallest Lamborghini — the Huracan having replaced the Gallardo by then — but the powertrain was streamlined down from a choice of two motors and two gearboxes to just one: a 5.2-liter V-10 and a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. To make up for the loss of the V-8, the V-10 came in two flavors: the regular one making 533 hp, and the V10 Plus making 602 hp.

The biggest change, however, was the R8’s looks. Gone were the smooth, elegant curves of the first model, replaced with sharper, more geometric shapes; the side blade had been bisected, the rear seemed stretched out. Even if the design language had changed, however, the message was the same as always: the R8 was still unmistakably a supercar.

As before, a Spyder variant followed, debuting in the spring of 2016. In fall of 2017, however Audi did something unexpected: the brand that had built its reputation on Quattro all-wheel-drive created a rear-wheel-drive R8. The R8 RWS (which stood for Rear Wheel Series, not Rear Wheel Steering) was a limited-run variant that shaved off weight and gave the car a more playful nature by channeling its 533 horses solely to the rear wheels. It proved popular enough that, after the R8’s mid-life refresh in late 2018, Audi made the rear-wheel-drive R8 a fixture of the lineup, eventually culminating in the 562-hp model with the slightly awkward name of R8 V10 Performance RWD in mid-2021.

Come fall of 2022, Audi rolled out a second-generation version of the lighter, sharper GT — but by then, the writing was on the wall for the supercar, with Audi admitting the new R8 GT would be the model’s swan song. The final example of the breed rolled off the assembly line in early 2024. So far, the automaker has given no concrete indication of plans for a successor. Given how much respect the R8 has earned for the Audi brand over the last few decades, however … we can’t imagine the name will remain gone forever.