Test the tech: R8 and M3We must have cured lepers in a previous life because our karma was working overtime, as evidenced by the 2008 Audi R8 and the 2008 BMW M3 Coupe arriving in our garage the same week. Although we felt a head-to-head competition between these two cars wouldn't be appropriate, we decided to take them both on a sport drive over some excellent twisty roads north of San Francisco. We had two drivers swapping cars and noting the differences. As a bonus, we had taken the 2008 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet over this same route the week before, giving us a further point of comparison. The Audi R8 and the BMW M3 square off next to Tomales Bay. For the first part of our run, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and turned off the freeway at Lucas Valley Road, which afforded us some easy turns, and time to get used to the cars.
The trip out of the city was made difficult by the R8's R tronic transmission, a sequential manual gearbox with an automatic mode rebranded from Lamborghini's e-gear transmission. In fact, the R8 is based on the Lamborghini Gallardo platform, getting the same chassis and sharing 15 percent of its parts. With the R tronic in automatic mode, there are huge power drops between the first three gears, causing serious lurching. Pushing the Sport button below the gearshift, which changes the shift points, mitigates this behavior and manually shifting the transmission can virtually eliminate the lurching. Overall, the R8 isn't fun to drive in traffic or at low speeds. On the other hand, the BMW M3, with its six-speed manual transmission, was perfectly comfortable to drive in congested areas, and made it easy to creep along at 5 mph when necessary. Fortunately, the R8 can also be purchased with a six-speed manual transmission.
Driving further north, we got onto long, winding roads with very few signs of civilization. At speed, the behavior of the R8's transmission smoothed out considerably, and the advantages of its fast shifts became apparent. We had left the automatic mode long ago in favor of the manual shifting, which could be accomplished by a tap on the steering wheel paddles or pushing the big metal shifter up or down. Attacking a corner, we would shift down to second or third gear, then put on the power, and the R8 followed our line through the curve almost perfectly. We noticed a little understeer coming in to the corners, forcing us to turn the wheel a little more than we would expect in a car like this. Also, we were a little surprised at the wheel-mounted paddle shifters, which looked similar to what we saw in the Volkswagen R32 and the Acura TL-S.
We would expect them to be anchored to the steering column in a real high-performance car, so their position doesn't change while cornering. A turn like this won't bother the R8 one bit. Unfortunately for the BMW, the Audi R8 made the M3's handling feel cumbersome. After feeling the R8 grip the corners and follow through perfectly, the M3 felt big and unwieldy, partly because of the higher center of gravity and seating position. Where the R8 stayed perfectly flat as g-forces tried to pull it out, the M3 felt as if it had body roll, and would definitely lean out in the corners. Compared with most other cars, the M3 would impress us with its cornering, but the R8 is just that good. Of course, the M3 also behaves like a rear-wheel-drive car, with the road holding electronics letting the back end step out just a bit on the corners.
