Encased under glass and lit up like a museum piece, Audi’s ten-cylinder totem to human ingenuity looks as if it should be accompanied by a soft-spoken docent to narrate its very existence: At 610 horsepower, this naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V-10 is the most powerful engine ever put into production by Audi. It revs 20 percent quicker than its predecessor, spinning from idle to its 8500-rpm redline in 0.66 second.Except this naturally aspirated ten-cylinder isn’t a museum piece. It hasn’t been…
Encased under glass and lit up like a museum piece, Audi’s ten-cylinder totem to human ingenuity looks as if it should be accompanied by a soft-spoken docent to narrate its very existence: At 610 horsepower, this naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V-10 is the most powerful engine ever put into production by Audi. It revs 20 percent quicker than its predecessor, spinning from idle to its 8500-rpm redline in 0.66 second.Except this naturally aspirated ten-cylinder isn’t a museum piece. It hasn’t been driven to extinction by downsized, turbocharged engines—not yet, at least. The pedestal it’s bolted to, a 2017 Audi R8 V10 Plus, blitzes to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds and wails a stirring soprano aria in the process. It is the world’s greatest hands-on museum.This is our second instrumented test of the second-generation Audi R8. Our first run involved a Europe-spec model with magnetorheological dampers, black wheels, and a few lingering Germanisms in the 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster. This car represents the final American-market version and needed an extra two-tenths to 60 mph and three ticks through the quarter-mile despite a ruthless launch-control system that absolves the driver of any skill requirement. Still, clearing the quarter-mile in 10.9 seconds at 129 mph is no slow feat.