Legends don’t die, particularly automotive ones; they stay on beneath plaques at automobile reveals, in low-cost posters caught to childhood bed room partitions and in matchbox automobile collections endlessly. The Audi R8 is about to put down its nameplate some twenty years after it first confirmed its face as an idea automobile on the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Present. Audi invited us out to Monterey Automobile Week for a correct high-speed ship off of its well-known mid-engine sports activities automobile at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca.

(Audi introduced me out to Monterey, California, for Monterey Automobile Week and offered journalists with transportation round city, meals, and a gased-up, rear-wheel-drive Audi R8 V10 at Laguna Seca.)

After all the historic racers had made their method across the monitor, we joyful few have been ushered in direction of a pair of Audi R8 V10s, one in rear-wheel drive and the opposite a Quattro. I can now say I had the privilege of piloting a rear-wheel drive Audi R8 across the historic circuit.

We didn’t a lot time with the monitor to ourselves, so it wasn’t actually about getting a really feel for the automobile and all it could possibly do. However the R8 was a automobile even regular, non automobile individuals learn about and admire. It was a real legend, one I’d beforehand solely ever been capable of experience alongside in a single again after I began in automotive journalism in 2013. This time, journalists barely had a second to regulate their seat earlier than they hit that hallowed pavement. Regardless of the perfect teaching efforts of nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, none of us set any pace data that day. You may see a monitor one million occasions, drive it in video video games and even be on the grounds for hours, but it surely’s a completely totally different kettle of fish when really driving the monitor.

Whereas our two laps have been too brief—over within the blink of a watch actually—I nonetheless bought to bask within the glow of automotive historical past, which occurs to be my favourite topic of all time. Between teasing me over the recent pink sunburn I acquired at The Quail and sharing our love of the Karmann Ghia, R8 designer Frank Lamberty couldn’t assist however beam with satisfaction as we sat trackside at Laguna Seca. He repeated a line delivered to him by Audi’s well-known design boss Walter de Silva.

“We’ve to design, not a British mid-engine sports activities automobile, not an Italian mid-engine sports activities automobile, however a German mid-engine sports activities automobile. And I mentioned, OK, that’s a cool message however what does that imply? Ah, we needed to discover our personal id.”

The Audi R8 began life in motorsport, with the Audi R8R prototype continuing the R8 LMP, which might take 24 Hours of Le Mans by storm, profitable from 2000 to 2005 — besides in 2003 when the race was gained by the Bentley Velocity 8.

After its success in racing, Audi had its designers compete to create a highway automobile based mostly on the LMP. The deadline was aggressive. Work began in November 2002 on a present automobile that might be unveiled on the the 2003 Frankfurt Auto Present held in early September.

Lamberty described his personal components for the Audi R8 throughout a presentation to journalists; you merely take a Porsche 904, a Ducati 996, a predatory hawk and a…tennis ball. Mush them collectively and increase, one of the crucial iconic sports activities vehicles of the final twenty years. The Porsche 904 is at the very least as stunning because the tennis ball as it’s not thought of a really profitable automobile, however Lamberty cherished its form in addition to its versatility. The 904 was a every day drivable mid-engined automobile in spite of everything; precisely what Audi needed within the R8.

The tennis ball knowledgeable Lamberty’s preliminary method to the design; pulling the form of the R8 out of a sphere somewhat than a field. That the hawk impressed the aspect blades additionally stunned me. To me, the R8’s aspect blades made it appear to be the gills of some fast and silent shark able to strike from the murky depths.

One feverish design competitors later and Lamberty’s Audi Le Mans Quattro Idea got here out the winner. It was the third in sequence of race-inspired present vehicles, however the prospect of this one going into manufacturing was far more stable, thanks Volkswagen’s semi-recent acquisition of Lamborghini in 1998.

“That was the puzzle items that lastly match collectively,” Lamberty advised Jalopnik.

Like so many people, the Lamborghini Countach was Lamberty’s childhood hero automobile. So it’s becoming that Lamberty would notice that German id de Silva was trying to find thanks the Italian automaker. The R8 discovered a platform and engine companion within the Lamborghini Gallardo.

A number of years later in 2006 and a way more production-ready R8 confirmed its face on the Paris Motor Present. This is able to be the primary era, the one which Tony Stark instruments round in 2008’s Iron Man. It was additionally the primary manufacturing automobile to supply LED lighting as an possibility for consumers.

Manufacturing started in 2007 for the 2008 mannequin 12 months and would carry over most of the design cues of the Audi Le Mans quattro idea, although with simplified laser headlights. In its first era, it was supplied with Audi’s wonderful 4.2 Liter V8 behind the passenger compartment with the 5.2 Liter V10 following shortly. It had a supercar coronary heart with sharp, understated styling. However simply because the R8 was formally domesticated, doesn’t imply it stopped snagging victories at raceways. Launched at Daytona in 2009, an R8 GT3 racer debuted sharing 50 p.c of its components with the R8 highway automobile, together with the engine and area body initially used within the Gallardo. The race automobile and highway automobile even run down the very same line on the manufacturing facility Neckarsulm in Germany.

The second era R8 was instilled with the spirit of a distinct Lamborghini—the Huracan— for its 2015 refresh. The present and ultimate R8 nonetheless shares 60 p.c of its DNA with the Huracan. This was additionally the R8 that did away with the V8 possibility, solely providing consumers the symphonic wail of the V10. These subdued seems and supercar bona fides allowed Audi to maneuver greater than 1,000 R8s each month for the final 16 years, in response to Good Automobile Dangerous Automobile.

The R8 is a dream automobile. It might now appear somewhat archaic, but it surely maintains a degree of simple coolness that may by no means fade. It’s a real basic, one which doesn’t want to increase its life into a number of a long time to make its mark on the automotive panorama. Two laps have been actually not sufficient to know the R8, but it surely was loads to fall in love with the automobile.

So, what’s subsequent for Audi? The identical music each automaker is singing nowadays; electrification, digitalization, and automation. However similar to this sports activities automobile, Audi is certain to convey a purely German take to a world stuffed with inexperienced, however hopefully, not boring, vehicles.

Goodbye, Audi R8, we hardly knew you.