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Audi R8 Type 4S

Overview

By 2015 the argument about whether a mass-manufacturer could build a credible supercar was over, and Audi had won it with the first R8. The second generation is what it did next, and the decisions are sharper. The V8 was dropped entirely, on emissions grounds, which left one engine: the 5.2-litre naturally aspirated V10 the car shares with the Lamborghini Huracán. The platform is shared too. Both ride on Volkswagen Group's Modular Sports System, both chassis are built at Audi's Neckarsulm plant and both engines come from Audi's Győr works in Hungary, after which the Huracán is assembled at Sant'Agata and the R8 at Böllinger Höfe in Heilbronn. What Audi did with that hardware is the interesting part. It built the supercar you could actually use, with a boot, a dual-clutch gearbox, quattro traction and an interior a normal person could operate on the first attempt, and then spent nine years quietly sharpening it. The last one was finished on 22 March 2024, in Vegas Yellow, and went straight to the Audi museum in Ingolstadt. Nothing naturally aspirated will follow it.

Distinctions

The defining attributes and collector status that make this car garage-worthy.

Octane Files Select

Renowned for its history, engineering, or cultural weight.

Collectibility scorecard

Rated 1 to 10 on the traits that matter for owning, driving, and holding on to a car like this.

Desirability

7/10

Rarity

4/10

Driving thrill

8/10

Investment trajectory

6/10

Usability

9/10

Ease of restoration

6/10

Cultural impact

6/10

Electronic dependence

Fully analogHeavily electronic

Everything on this car is mediated. The throttle is drive-by-wire, the steering is electromechanical, the only gearbox is a seven-speed dual clutch with no manual option, and the quattro system's front axle is fed by an electronically controlled clutch pack rather than a mechanical centre differential. Stability control, launch control and selectable drive modes are standard, magnetic dampers were optional, and the instrument pack is Audi's Virtual Cockpit, a screen with no analogue backup behind it. Facelift cars added a gasoline particulate filter to the exhaust. There is no mechanical override for anything, which is precisely what makes the car so undemanding to use.

Market data

Demand tier, price trend, and typical values by condition. Our own assessment, not a quoted valuation.

Demand tier

EntrySolidHighBlue-chip

A dependable market. Well-kept cars hold their value and find ready buyers.

Value trajectory

AppreciatingStableCooling

Values are holding steady. What you pay today is what it's worth tomorrow.

Price by condition

Driver

$105k

Excellent

$150k

Concours

$225k

The Type 4S has finished depreciating and is sorting itself into tiers. Ordinary V10 and V10 performance coupés trade in the low six figures: a stock 2017 V10 plus made $137,000 on Bring a Trailer in May 2024, and retail guides put a 2017 coupé near $131,000. Delivery-mileage and rare-spec cars are a separate market. A 2018 V10 plus with the Competition package and 1,100 miles brought $242,000 in January 2024, a 352-mile Audi Exclusive Spyder $222,500 that April, and a 3,200-mile 2022 V10 performance $225,500 in February 2026. The 333-car GT RWD sits above the band written here and is the only variant clearly appreciating, at $274,000 in March 2026 and $251,000 in May 2026 against a $253,290 sticker. Aggregator averages for the R8 mix both generations together and understate this one.

Values as of August 2026.

Buyer's guide

What anyone seriously considering this car should know first.

Why it's worth it

A Lamborghini Huracán engineered to be driven to work, and the end of Audi's supercar line

Callout

The last naturally aspirated V10 Audi will ever sell, and the last R8 of any kind

What to watch for

Decide first which side of the October 2018 facelift you want, because it changes more than the bumpers. Facelift cars gained 30PS on the base engine and 10 on the plus, a quicker steering rack, larger carbon-ceramic brakes, a gasoline particulate filter and the option of Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres. Then decide on drive. Quattro is the default and by far the most common. RWS and RWD cars are lighter, rarer and more playful, and the RWS is identified by a matte black grille, a gloss black upper side blade and an RWS badge on the passenger dash where the quattro badge normally sits. On any car, get the service history for the S tronic fluid, ask when the intake valves were last walnut blasted, and check the magnetic dampers for leaks. Establish whether the ceramic brakes are original and how much disc is left, because that is the single largest bill the car can present. There was never a manual, so anything advertised with three pedals is not what it claims to be. Finally, prefer the honest 20,000-mile car to the 900-mile one that has sat, unless you are buying the mileage on purpose.

The Story

Driving character

The point of this car is the engine, and the point of the engine is that it is not turbocharged. The 5.2 V10 makes its peak between 8,000 and 8,250rpm, which means the last two thousand revs are the whole event: the noise hardens, the delivery keeps building instead of flattening, and you reach the limiter having worked for it. Nothing with a turbo does this, and by 2024 almost nothing else was still trying. The gearbox is a seven-speed dual clutch and there was never a manual, which remains the car's most argued-over decision. Quattro cars are traction first. The front axle is fed by a water-cooled clutch pack and the balance is rear-biased, so the car turns in cleanly and then simply goes, in weather that would have a rear-driven rival hunting for grip. The rear-drive cars are a different personality, 50 to 65kg lighter over the nose and considerably more willing to move around underneath you. Post-facelift cars got a quicker rack and bigger ceramic brakes. Underneath all of it the ride is Audi-normal, which is exactly why people used these as daily cars.

Design

Florian Liese drew the 2013 car as an evolution rather than a restart, and the biggest single change was to the side blade. The first R8's blade was one large panel behind the door and it was the car's signature. On the Type 4S it splits in two, one section along the rear side window and one below the beltline, and it can be ordered in body colour so that it nearly disappears. The proportions are held by hardware: 4,426mm long, 1,940mm wide, only 1,240mm tall, on a 2,650mm wheelbase, with a shell that swaps several large aluminium pressings for carbon. Manu Müller's 2018 facelift squared everything off. The front bumper gained winglets, side skirts appeared in exposed carbon, the rear went to a single wide grille above a heavy diffuser with two round exhausts in sculpted cut-outs, and the grille grew until it stretched between the headlights. Above it sit three small horizontal intakes, a direct quotation of the original Audi Quattro. LED headlamps were standard and laser units were a European option, which is about as Audi a detail as exists.

Motorsport pedigree

This is not a marketing racing programme. The R8 LMS GT3 is built alongside the road car at Böllinger Höfe, and Audi keeps the race chassis inside the production process through roof assembly and the dip-paint bath before finishing it as a competition car. It shares almost nothing else: a 430kW race V10, no all-wheel drive, an aluminium and carbon structure 30kg lighter and 39 percent stiffer than the road shell, 1,225kg all in, and the first roof rescue hatch fitted to a GT3 car. It won the Nürburgring 24 Hours on its debut in 2015, then again in 2017, 2019 and 2022, four of the six overall wins Audi has taken there with the R8 LMS. Audi Sport Team Land's 2017 win came by 29 seconds. Spa fell in 2017 to Audi Sport Team Saintéloc, and Audi Sport Team WRT won the 2018 Bathurst 12 Hour on its first attempt with Robin Frijns, Stuart Leonard and Dries Vanthoor. An Evo update arrived for 2019 and an Evo II for 2022, both sold as upgrade kits as well as complete cars. Below the GT3 sat a GT4 from 2017 and a 640hp GT2 from 2019, the most powerful car Audi has ever sold to a customer.

In culture

Audi bought its way into the Marvel films and got its money's worth. Tony Stark had been driving R8s since the first Iron Man, and the new car took over in Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015 and again in Captain America: Civil War the following year. Audi announced the car's return to Stark's garage before the film opened, spoiling a plot point for anyone paying attention. The odder collaboration is the R8 Star of Lucis, a one-off built to match the car in Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, raffled in 2016 and later displayed and auctioned at the 2019 Tokyo Auto Salon. Away from the screen the R8 has spent years as a working safety car for the DTM, the British Superbike Championship, the FIA World Endurance Championship and Le Mans, which is a peculiar kind of fame: seen by millions, watched by nobody. What it never quite became is a poster car. It is too composed for that, and looking obviously usable is not what bedroom walls are for.

Rivals

Cars from other manufacturers that competed for the same buyers when new.

Owning One

Why collectors want it

Two things carry this car. The first is the engine, because a naturally aspirated 5.2-litre V10 revving past 8,000rpm is now a closed chapter, not a specification, and no manufacturer is going back. The second is that the R8 is the cheapest way to own the Huracán's hardware, which the market has worked out. Ordinary V10 and V10 performance coupés have finished depreciating and are trading in the low six figures, which makes this the rare modern supercar that is neither an investment nor a liability. The hierarchy above that is clear. The 333-car V10 GT RWD sits at the top and is the only variant reliably making more than its sticker; the 999-car RWS is the connoisseur's pick, lighter and better balanced than any quattro car and the reason rear-drive became a permanent option; the 222-car Decennium and the 610PS and 620PS plus and performance cars sit above the base V10. Spyders trade slightly behind coupés. The R8 e-tron, at fewer than 100 cars, is a curiosity rather than a collectible, but it will not stay that way forever.

Which one to look for

The line is easy to read once you know the October 2018 facelift split it in two. Before it: V10 at 540PS and V10 plus at 610PS, coupé from 2015 and Spyder from 2016, with a plus Spyder from 2017. After it: V10 quattro at 570PS and V10 performance quattro at 620PS. The rear-drive story is the interesting one. The RWS of 2017 was a 999-car experiment in simply removing the front driveshafts, 50kg lighter and better balanced, and it worked well enough that Audi made rear-wheel drive permanent in November 2019, first as the 540PS V10 RWD and from 2022 as the 570PS V10 performance RWD. At the top sits the R8 V10 GT RWD of 2023: 333 cars, 620PS, the most powerful rear-drive Audi ever built, and the model that closed the line. Two collectible oddities round it out. The Decennium of 2019 marked ten years of the V10 R8 in 222 cars, and the R8 e-tron was an all-electric version sold in Europe only, which found fewer than 100 buyers before Audi cancelled it in 2016.

Decennium · 2019

Shown at the 2019 Geneva motor show to mark ten years of the V10 in the R8, and based on the V10 performance quattro. Bronze 20-inch wheels and bronze engine cover, gloss black aerodynamic elements, a matte Daytona Grey developed for the car, Alcantara and leather with carbon trim and diamond stitching, and Decennium badging. Coupé only.

e-tron · 2015–2016

The all-electric R8, shown alongside the Type 4S at the 2015 Geneva motor show and sold in Europe only. Two motors on the rear axle for 462PS and 920Nm, a 92kWh T-shaped liquid-cooled lithium-ion pack, 1,780kg, 3.9 seconds to 100km/h, 250km/h limited and a claimed 450km range.

Spyder · 2016–2024

Shown at the 2016 New York show. Redesigned soft top operable at up to 50km/h, 1,795kg for the pre-facelift V10 and 100kg heavier than the equivalent coupé. Offered with every engine the coupé had, from the 540PS V10 through to the 620PS V10 performance quattro, and in rear-wheel drive from 2020.

V10 GT RWD · 2023

The last R8. Announced in October 2022, rear-wheel drive, 620PS from the 5.2 V10, lightened, and fitted with a front splitter, winglets and a large fixed rear wing. Audi calls it the most powerful rear-wheel drive Audi of all time.

V10 plus / V10 performance quattro · 2015–2024

The quick one throughout the run. 610PS at 8,250rpm and 560Nm before the facelift, 620PS at 8,000rpm and 580Nm after it, when the name changed to V10 performance quattro. 1,645kg for the pre-facelift coupé, 3.1 seconds to 100km/h and 331km/h in facelift form. Carbon ceramic brakes, carbon side blades and a fixed rear wing were part of the package.

V10 quattro · 2015–2021

The base car and the volume seller. 5.2-litre naturally aspirated V10 FSI, 540PS at 8,250rpm and 540Nm, seven-speed S tronic dual clutch, quattro all-wheel drive, 1,695kg, 3.5 seconds to 100km/h and 320km/h. The October 2018 facelift renamed it V10 quattro and raised output to 570PS at 8,000 to 8,200rpm.

V10 RWD / V10 performance RWD · 2019–2024

Rear-wheel drive made permanent, announced 19 November 2019. Initially 540PS and 540Nm, 1,595kg for the coupé and 1,695kg for the Spyder, with a 40:60 weight distribution. From October 2021 the V10 performance RWD replaced it at 570PS and 550Nm and added dynamic steering, carbon fibre anti-roll bars and ceramic brakes to the rear-drive option list.

V10 RWS · 2017–2018

Rear Wheel Series, unveiled at the 2017 Frankfurt show and the first rear-drive R8 of any generation. Same 540PS V10, front driveshafts deleted, 1,590kg for the coupé and 1,680kg for the Spyder, weight distribution 40.6:59.4. Matte black grille and air intakes, gloss black upper side blade, optional red vinyl stripe, and an RWS badge on the passenger dash in place of the quattro badge.

What owning one is like

The reason people bought these is the reason they keep them. The 5.2 V10 is one of the most durable engines ever put behind a supercar's cabin, and it wants ordinary things: fresh oil, a warm-up and to be used. Direct injection means carbon deposits build on the intake valves over time, and walnut blasting every 30,000 to 40,000 miles is the accepted fix rather than a crisis. Magnetic ride dampers leak eventually and are a known budget item. The seven-speed S tronic is tough but unforgiving of skipped fluid services, and clutch packs get expensive once they are worn. The second generation quietly deleted the first car's worst habits: no single-clutch R tronic, no frame-crack worry, and the coolant expansion tank moved somewhere sensible. Beyond that it behaves like an Audi, which is the entire thesis. Visibility is good, the boot takes a weekend bag, it starts in February and a dealer can service it. Cars that get driven cost less to keep than cars that sit, and this one was designed to be driven, so the low-mileage collector examples are the ones to inspect hardest.

Upkeep & parts

Parts are not the problem here, which is unusual for anything on this page's rival list. The R8 is a current-era Audi with a full dealer network behind it, the V10 and most of its ancillaries are shared with the Lamborghini Huracán, and independent specialists have been working on both for a decade. That keeps routine costs closer to an RS-badged Audi than to an exotic, right up until something is specific to the car. Carbon-ceramic brakes are the classic example: they last a very long time and then cost supercar money. Magnetic dampers and S tronic clutch packs are the other two items worth pricing before you buy, and walnut blasting for the intake valves belongs in the 30,000 to 40,000 mile window. The community side is thinner than the marque deserves. R8Talk and the AudiWorld R8 forum carry the technical knowledge, at least two attempts at an owner registry have been abandoned, and there is no R8-specific club, only R8 sections inside the wider Audi clubs. Audi's own end-of-production material is the closest thing to an official archive.