Porsche has another competitor to worry about now and this time it’s from within Germany and within its own company. The battle for supremacy between the Nissan GT-R and the Porsche Turbo is still on-going but now Audi is set to enter the field as well to take on the Porsche 911 GT3 with a street-legal version of the R8 GT3 race car.
The V10-powered R8 GT3 race car won last year’s FIA European GT Championship which also happened to be its debut season. And with that, Audi has since been swamped with orders for the race car this year, apparently Audi has to build 30 cars this years compared to the two dozen it made in 2009. It might sound like a monumental task, but Audi doesn’t think so and together with building the race cars, its working to sell the R8 GT3 as a road-legal car as well.
According to our source, Audi chief Armin Kappler has confirmed that one road-going R8 GT3 has already been built for appraisal and that VW Group boss Ferdinand Piech likes it, but says a decision on whether to produce the car has yet to be made.
If all goes according to plans, the GT3 would fit with Audi’s plan of releasing a new R8 variant every year or two just as Porsche does with the 911 (GT2, GT3) and Lamborghini does with the Gallardo (Balboni, Superleggera). The R8, according to Audi, will have a seven or eight-year life cycle, since it was first introduced in 2006, the R8 still has about four more years left before its due for replacement. That leaves plenty of time for spin-off variants.
After some hardcore competitive racing, Audi has identified areas where the R8’s aluminium spaceframe can be reinforced. But the next generation R8 may not be all aluminium as the introduction of battery technology into all of Audi’s sports car (with the forthcoming e-tron models) means the company is looking at making its spaceframes partly from carbon-fiber that will be used for high-strength joints and body panels.
If implemented successfully, the next R8, due in 2013 or 2014, could use structural carbon-fiber in its chassis. By then Audi would have also made the decision to equip the R8 with a dual-clutch gearbox as used on other Audis, but not on the R8 or Lamborghini Gallardo that shares its drivetrain technology with the R8.
The new RS5, which uses a more powerful version of the R8’s V8 engine, is the first RS model to use a dual clutch gearbox, but so far Lamborghini is resisting the move to a dual-clutch gearbox. Apparently even the Murcielago replacement model will not use a DSG gearbox either.
Now the question is, Porsche is officially a part of the VW group as is Audi, so would VW really let these two very capable and very competitive companies go head-to-head in a road-legal-race-car battle. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Source: Autocar
