What's the news?
It has been ten years since Audi started fitting its magnificent R8 sports car with a V10 engine and so, to coincide with sales of the revised Mk2 R8 getting underway, Audi is doing a special celebration of its ten-pot midships masterpiece.
It's called the R8 V10 Decennium - that being the Latin for decade, if you hadn't guessed - and just 222 units will be built. It's powered by a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder TDI engine... no, of course it's not! It's powered by the jewel-like 5.2-litre FSI V10, here developing the same 620hp as the top-line R8 V10 Performance. That means 13.1 litres/100km economy, with 297g/km of CO2 emissions, but when it can strip off 0-100km/h in 3.1 seconds and run on to a top speed of 331km/h, you kind of don't care about the eco-stats.
The R8 V10 Decennium is marked out, in the main, by bronze and black detailing. The main body of the car (it's a Coupe only) is, in the case of these photos, finished in matte-effect Daytona Grey but you'll note matte bronze in the following places: the milled 20-inch alloy wheels; the intake manifold of the 5.2 FSI; and for the stitching dotted liberally around the cabin. Complementing this look is a gloss-black finish on the side sills, rear diffuser and front spoiler, the side blades and the door mirror housings are gloss carbon fibre, and the badging plus the fabled four-rings logo of Audi are finished in... yup, black. And if you don't fancy Daytona Grey matte, then you can have the same shade but in a pearl-effect finish, or choose from five alternative metallic hues - Suzuka Grey, Floret Silver, Mythos Black, Ascari Blue and Kemora Grey.
Inside, the Decennium is finished entirely in black (save for the aforementioned copper stitching), with inlays in gloss carbon fibre. The steering wheel is finished in Alcantara and bears a black 12 o'clock marking, while a special 'Decennium' logo adorns the centre console, the doors, the carbon inlays in the sill trims and the door-puddle lighting.
Anything else?
Audi will sell each of the 222 examples of the R8 V10 Decennium for the decidedly neat price of €222,000, albeit this is its German homeland value - so it might be more if you can get hold of one here. Each example will come with an exclusive, bronze-coloured car cover featuring 'Decennium' embroidery.