Well, I finally received my #150 Spyder GT yesterday. Before I get into it, some context - because hey, when I scour forums, I love a good back story
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I bought this car on a total whim a few weeks ago, as I constantly am on C&B and BAT looking for good deals on fun cars - my game is that I look for fun, high-mileage, sub $150K cars that I hope to be able to drive and lose no more than $10K a year on in depreciation (insurance and services aside). Put another way I’m looking to experience amazing cars and hoping to pay about $1K a month for the privilege.
Oh, and these are always a second car. My primary car is usually something that is practical that I put a bunch of miles on with my three young kids. My current DD is a Rivian electric truck (which I love).
I share this to explain the persona that I don’t keep cars very long, about a year or so, and these are not my DD’s.
My last fun car was a 991.1 GT3 last year.
My previous experience in an R8 was back in 2012 or so, when a buddy of mine who was working at an R8 dealership (we got to know each other in 2008 when I bought my Mazda 3 from him - loved that little ride) allowed me to take out a V8 R8 manual. I was quite underwhelmed, and as my daily back then was a 2011 Boxster Spyder, basically wrote off R8’s. It felt heavy, under powered, a rather lackluster manual gearbox, and not nearly as loud as I hoped a V8 would be. I realize as I write this that there may be some V8 R8 owners out there - no offense meant on your cars! I was in love with my 2750 pound Boxster at that time, and the R8 just felt really heavy in comparison. I do not mean to say it was a bad car, but just that for the money, I felt it wasn’t for me.
Fast forward to 2023, and I was scouring the auctions and cars.com for a Mclaren. Well, I was looking to buy a 991.2 GT3 manual, and though prices have dropped, not to where I think they will go. So I started looking at Mclarens, specifically the 650S, and I said it would be fun to upgrade to a ‘super car’ for once just to try the experience out.
Then, one day, this GT popped up in cars and bids. I was really surprised by the comments, about how much people who were on the auction loved this car. So I started watching YouTube videos, and universally the feedback on these Gen 1 R8’s was very very good. This particular car on C&B has 23,xxx miles and all the service records, and the dealer had excellent ratings on google, and, most importantly, the car was only being bid to about $81K. As all the comps were north of $120K, I said what the heck (I also knew from a friend that C&B was putting in cash towards cars to so that auctions didn’t end with ‘reserve not met’ so I was thinking I might get lucky in that regard as well).
Well, when we entered the last 2 minutes of the auction, me and one other guy kept on bidding it up at $500 increments. On my last bid, which I thought for sure I would be overbid at, the other guy dropped out, and 60 seconds later, I guess I owned an R8. FWIW, the final bid was $101,500, so with fees the car was $105K. I figured as long as there were no huge mechanical problems, here was a car I could but 5K miles on and sell for $95K next year.
That is a lot more context than I meant, but I guess if you love these types of forums like I do, hopefully you don’t mind.
So, the car arrives yesterday, and I will start with wow, the car look STUNNING in person. I realized that while I live in the Bay Area in California and see lots of nice cars, I don‘t see many R8s. I definitely dont see many (any?) spyders, and this GT is just beautiful in person. This car has a beautiful profile, and the carbon fiber on the door, rear engine mount, and the wing look very, very good. In black (I will add pictures soon), the car is just very aggressive - I really like it. Looks - 9.5/10
I don’t want this to be all good, so where was a I less than happy? Well, the interior door leather feels a little “loose,” and the red stitching doesn’t pop anywhere near as well as stitching does on porsches. A full grade lower in quality than what I‘m used to. While the center dash and white dials are very well done, overall the interior doesn’t feel cohesive. Technologically, it feels very good for a 2012, and the B&O stereo is excellent. The steering wheel is quite worn, so if I keep this longer than a few months I will want to replace that. Interior - 7/10
I immediately went out for a drive, and have about 30 miles on the car so far. This car is light years ahead of that R8 I drove almost a decade ago. The V10 absolutely roars, and I don’t know how much has to do with the IPE exhaust fitted to the car, but it sounds incredible. On the road, it just grabs speed and wants to keep going. I was driving on local roads so didn’t want to exceed the limit by more than 10MPH, but I got to that number very quickly. My Rivian is faster, as it’s a 880 HP 7,000 lbs truck that has a 3 second 0-60 time, but this definitely
feels faster and is way more fun
. I did jump on to the freeway for a mile or so just to go on and off the ramps, and had a huge smile on my face the whole time. The car felt very planted, and the suspension has the right firmness for me - it feels like a sports car but not quite as stiff as my GT3, which for driving around town I like. The driving feel is excellent. Not Porsche Boxster, but I actually like it as much as the GT3 - I think the mid-engine architecture helps immensely here. The car also has very little body roll, and I mentioned it already, but whether on a straight or on a curve sounds amazing! This car was sitting at a dealership for a year and not driven much, so I don’t want to push it very hard until I get it in for a service and have it looked at.
I‘m really excited to get this car on a more spirited drive and especially to a track and/or auto cross event.
The clutch is very interesting. I have watched all the reviews several times after I bought the car, and knew what to expect, and in some cases it’s better than I thought it would be, and in some cases worse? At low speeds and in reverse, it’s like drive a manual very poorly. There is some very difficult throttle modulation, and it can lead to a very ‘jerky’ experience. My driveway is on a slight incline, and as I was trying to figure out how to park the car without scraping, I ‘stalled’ the car in reverse three times - I’ve never seen that in an automatic. This happened when trying to carefully modulate the throttle while going in reverse - on a hill, it just wont let you. Outside of sub 5MPH driving and reverse, the R-tronic is fine! It shifts quickly for a single clutch, and downshifts, as noted by many others, and really good. Im still figuring out whether I like the ‘lift-shift-press’ or ‘shift-lift-press’ way of changing gears. I‘ve seen YouTubers note both, and they both lead to smooth shifts if timed correctly. As I get more used to the car I will report back.
Now I only hope after my service that everything checks out ok, however after day 1, I think the Audi GT is a fantastic car! I‘m not sure if it will appreciate or depreciate, and don’t really care as long as the car doesn’t plummet below $80K USD in the next year or so.
Hope this helps some prospective buyers and fellow enthusiasts - I will check back from time to time to add more impressions!
