Audi R8: Kan-ye Spot The Difference?

Audi is the master of making its entire range look identical (A4/A6?). It's the same with its facelifts, too, backing up that well-known slogan: 'Vorsprung Durch Same Again'

18 May 2015

That’s why we weren’t worried when we knew the R8’s freshen-up facelift was on the way. See, we bloody love the R8, and didn't want to see it spoiled. It still reminds us of the RSQ that starred alongside His Royal Highness the Fresh Prince of Will Smith in I:Robot.

Okay, the spherical wheels and backwards gullwing doors are Hollywood-spec, but if you compare the R8 to the Le Mans concept, it’s frankly amazing that conservative ol’ Audi had the balls to put it into production unchanged. And then bolt in a 518bhp and go after Lamborghini!

That’s why a white, hard-top, manual ‘box V10 car with red leather seats, with steel brakes, carbon sideblades and a piano black interior trim has a prime spot in any fantasy lottery garage as the ‘everyday supercar’. What a piece of kit that would be...

Problem is, that car, in that exact spec, needs to exist out there already, because we're not so sure about the facelift at all; the rear lights aren’t as pretty – they’re too bland and rectangular in their LED design - and the RS-trademark oval tailpipes are binned, too, in favour of bazooka-sized tunnels that would embarrass a chavved-up Saxo. Very wannabe supercar, and that’s not a good thing.

But the real problem is the front, where Audi appears to have taken its usually successful LED recipe, and used it to form a motoring tribute to a hip-hop megastar. We like Kanye West, especially when he’s not dabbing in auto-tune, but did Audi really need to explore West's fashion back catalogue and give the new R8 a pair of shutter lenses?

Those twin bars of daytime running lights cut straight across the R8’s once elegant headlight clusters. And teamed up with the slats that have always lived in the front grille, it’s those glasses straight out of the Stronger video.