Slideshow: There's Going To Be a V6 in the R8
Not at all. It has more to do with Chinese legislation than anything else, but are the R8s safe?
How the New Market Place Works
Audi has teamed up with Porsche to offer a handful of smaller displacement engines that skirt Chinese tax regulations. This 2.9-liter engine is sourced from the Porsche Panamera which is a smart move from the company based out of Ingolstadt. A big engine would make it impossible for this car to be affordable.
Bracket Racing
Average horsepower for the V10 is somewhere in the mid to high 500 range with the V8 offerings coming in at a slightly less potent 430bhp. A V6 would likely fill the gap with a respectable 450bhp. It’s a tough offer that wouldn’t sell in other parts of the world, but it works for this marketplace. A couple fewer cylinder bores means less weight, right?
Interesting Perspectives
Emerging markets are bringing a new wave of tuning and offerings from big companies. It will be interesting to see what happens in the growing Chinese market and what it does to the world of sports cars. As expendable income increases in these countries the demand for luxury goods will inevitably rise which begs the question: how satisfied will the elite be with a downgraded engine unavailable to the rest of the world?
2020 Vision
The recent announcement of the China VI emissions initiative will raise the bar and put this emerging new market in line with American and European standards. One of the big changes coming to the country will be the use of more efficient catalytic converters. Perhaps with these programs in place the V8 and V10 models may become available as taxes adapt to emerging regulations. Still, it does make you wonder what a tuned V6 in one of these cars would feel like.
Safe and Sound
Audi is smart to jump into this new market with an offering that is unique to the challenges the Chinese government requires. The average purchase of a car in this part of the world comes with a staggering 30% mark up over MSRP which makes any affordable offering of a supercar a good one. This is simply a smart business move as opposed to a reflection of what will become of the R8 in the future. Hope you enjoyed reading.
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