Audi R8 V-12 TDI Concept
Posted on 01.15.08 1:06PM under Audi
Torque, as we all know, is a twisting force. It??™s what gives us Indian burns, sort-of-dry dishrags, and long black streaks on industrial-park streets late at night. It??™s also a hoot and a half, particularly when presented in quantities on level with a Caterpillar D11T bulldozer.
Audi??™s 5.9-liter V-12 diesel promises 738 pound-feet of torque, or a little more than Superman would have needed had he used a car and a lonely Nevada two-lane to stop the earth??™s rotation and spin us back in time. Wedge the V-12 in Audi??™s R8 supercar, and we??™re going a little weak in the neck.
Neither car nor engine is new, and we??™ve had the opportunity to sample both. The R8 prevailed over Porsche??™s vaunted 911 Turbo in a 2007 comparison test for its playful, predictable behavior, despite being slower than the Porsche. And the V-12 TDI??”inspired by the diesel in Audi??™s back-to-back Le Mans??“winning R10 race car??”made its debut at the 2007 Detroit auto show under the hood of a Q7 sport-ute, which we later drove and labeled ???just mental.??? We meant that in a really, really good way.
Audi claims sticking the 493-hp diesel V-12 in the R8 will result in a 0-to-60-mph time of 4.2 seconds and a top speed well over the 187 mph it claims for R8s equipped with the 4.2-liter gas V-8. We say poppycock. We recorded a 0-to-60 blast of four seconds flat in our first outing with the R8, and that car was down 73 horsepower on the diesel V-12, never mind the torque deficit of 421 pound-feet. Actually, do mind it, because it??™s an improvement of 133 percent. How do you say ???yee-ha??? in German?
All that, and Audi claims this engine meets Euro 6 emissions standards not set to go into effect until 2014.
External cues that something is amiss with this R8 include more gape to the side blades??”Audi??™s term for those mismatched vertical panels aft of the doors??”a glass roof with a NACA duct to help feed air to the big diesel, and all-LED headlights to better replicate daytime on those long Cannonballing nights.
Originally, our sources reported that the R10 race car would not inspire Audi honchos to drop a 12-cylinder compression-ignition lump into the R8 supercar. Here??™s hoping they were wrong and some serious arm-twisting has been going on at Audi.
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