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Bored of the rings

Fancy an Audi R8 but baulk at the £80,000 list price? Well, discerning connoisseur of automobilia that you are, how about an R8 replica… based on a Ford Cougar?

Remember the Cougar, that coupe-thing launched by Ford in the late 90s and canned rapidly thereafter? Here it is again, underpinning a surprisingly realistic replica of Audi’s mid-engined supercar.

We say ‘surprisingly realistic’. We mean ‘might fool a myopic octogenerian from 100 yards away’. Nonetheless, you’ve got to admire the ambition of the creator… even if the finished product is a touch, er, wrong.

It might be a bit short of R8-rivalling performance, too – the Cougar has a 2.5-litre V6 putting out about 170bhp. At least, that’s what it was putting out when it was new. We fear you’d be a good 250bhp (and two cylinders) short of the R8’s 414bhp V8.

That said, maybe this is the next credit-crunch busting trend: supercar replicas based on more humble underpinnings? Next week, we bring you a Scuderia Spider based on a Daewoo Matiz. Maybe not…