New car news

10 September 2009 - 11:30

R8 Spyder leaked

See more Audi R8 Spyder pictures

You weren’t supposed to see this until Frankfurt, but the Audi R8 Spyder – the soft-top iteration of the lovely mid-engined supercar – has escaped onto the web (for the second time, actually, if you remember that Iron Man 2 leak).

It looks – as you might have confidently guessed – like an R8 with the roof removed. Actually, there’s a bit more to it than that: Audi has ditched the R8’s signature ‘side blades’ in favour of a pair of more conventional air scoops in front of the rear wheels.

The rear deck – which hides a fabric roof, though we’re yet to see a decent photo of the R8 Spyder with its roof up – features a neat new pair of air intakes. The windscreen is framed in brushed aluminium, too.

The Spyder will get the more powerful of the R8’s two engines: the Lambo-derived 5.2-litre V10 putting out 391kW and 528NM. The hard-top R8 V10 will hit 100km/h in 3.9 seconds, so we’d expect the Spyder to crack the sprint in just over four seconds. That’s mighty quick.

We’ll get a better look at the Audi R8 V10 Spyder in Frankfurt this week in all its chocolatey goodness.