R8 stood in the shadow of mad Italian cousins, but wildly bespoke Nuvolari can steal the spotlight
Everything we read about the Nuvolari suggests Audi has little intention of perpetuating the hierarchy that saw the R8 play second fiddle first to the Gallardo then the Huracán.
This new supercar is going to have even more power than its Temerario cousin, as well as a full carbon body. Limited production will also make it precisely as exclusive as a LaFerrari. These are not the trappings of a machine people will easily be able to denigrate as being an ‘overgrown TT’.
And yet I do hope Audi retains some of the maturity that set the R8 apart from almost every other mid-engined supercar. Some of the stunning fluidity that characterised the first-gen car was traded for more dynamic aggression in later years, but an Audi R8 of any period was always the car we’d scrap for when it was time to drive home from a group test in Wales. It would dispatch 250 autumnal miles as charmingly and nonchalantly as an Aston Martin DB11.
So how might this Nuvolari present, relative to the Lamborghini? The Temerario is highly strung, unquestionably. In order to hit 10,000rpm, the engine is tuned in such a way that the lower portion of the rev-range can be a bit of a dirge. It needs commitment to feel special.
It is a similar story with the complex chassis, which wants load and agitation – to be taken by the scruff – before it begins to reveal magnificent poise and dexterity for a near two-tonne car.
The Audi uses the same powertrain and architecture as the Temerario but so sensitive and infinitely tunable are modern systems that the two could well feel almost entirely unrelated.
We’re not just talking about damping rates, castor and ride-height here. There’s the calibration of the rear-steering, the throttle-by-wire maps and the torque-vectoring ability of the e-motors on the front axle, not to mention old-fashioned sound-deadening, the tactility of the materials in the cockpit, and minute adjustments hip-point. The potential for divergence is substantial.
Audi’s new technical boss Rouven Mohr, who joined directly from Lamborghini and the Temerario, is obsessive about this stuff. During a chat at Sant’Agata after the launch of the Revuelto, I can remember him saying something to the effect that ‘these days any engineering undergrad can draw completely perfect suspension geometry – the real magic is in the tuning of the electronic systems.’
The Nuvolari is his chance to demonstrate this thinking with a machine not only very different to the Temerario in character, but different in itself – able to deliver R8-esque touring manners one moment but then take the fight to a 911 GT3 on track.
