Initially, it was always a Gallardo that I had my heart set on, but around a year ago, I had a short drive of a V10+ and any thoughts of a Gallardo, and the extra cost and hassle that goes with it, went out the window
Anyway, to cut a long story short, after some pestering, Audi came up trumps with a few days in one of their cars as an extended test drive for me to see how I could live with the car and to try simple things like seeing if would fit in my garage or whether I could handle it on a long motorway run in the rain etc (it'll be a weekend car, not a daily car, but you never know when these long drives will come up)
On Tuesday28th Oct, Audi rocked up at my house with an 1800mile old 64 plate V10. The spec wasn't exactly how i'd choose it, but it's a nice looking car none the less ;
Ibis white
Manual
Black leather
Silver side blades (?!?)
Chrome polished wheels
Illuminated side sills
Reversing camera
Apart from one day in my RS4 mountain biking, I used the car everyday as my day to day car to see how it handled the mundane tasks as well as good driving days, and to get a good feel for it.
Trips included some of the uk's finest driving roads in north wales around the area of the Evo triangle, a trip to silverstone to watch Formula Fords/Classics and a day of business in central London
I think i tested the car out pretty well, and it's certainly an impressive beast. Personally, I'd go carbon blades/dark wheels every time, and I think the illuminated side sills were tack and the reversing camera essential, but by the end of the time, i started to think that the silver blades and chrome wheels give what's an ageing car a fairly modern look. Not my cup of tea personally, but still not as bad as I thought it might be.
Anyway, I've taken a load of pictures of the car ;
The best deal I've found through a dealer for the spec V10+ I'd want (Ibis or Suzuka with black GT wheels, buckets and reversing camera/B&O) is £117k
This'd be a reach for me currently for a 3rd car, so I'd want to go into with an eye on not losing a fortune.
Given that the next R8 is due out next year, I suspect the value of later model cars will plummet drastically and I'd take a massive bath on it.
If I put down £60k and financed the rest with monthly payments and possibly a small balloon, then the car would be depreciating faster than I was paying it off, and that's not a great position to be in
(Bear in mind that when it comes to car value judgements, I'm pretty poor at it - I was offered a 997.2 GT3RS for circa £65k 18months ago and turned it down as I though it'd lose money when the 991GT3 came out - how wrong was I now they're trading for £140k, doh!)
Early V10+'s are now starting to go for around £85, but not dropping much below that and prices seem to be levelling off (Cheapest I've seen is a silver one for around 85)
Early V10's are settled at around 65-70 and it's rare anything drops much below that - There's an attraction in getting an early Manual car as at least I could buy that for cash rather than getting into a finance agreement and sit it out until the 2015 model turns up
My questions for the collective 246 knowledge then is ;
1) Are early V10+'s likely to drop into Mid 70's as they seem to have reached a lower price platea ?
2) Given that the next R8 is on a shared platform with the Huracan, which I believe will only take a DSG box, so no manual - I suspect this will result in manual current shape V10's holding their value better than Stronic ?
3) If I hold out for the next R8 and the V10 is at an increased price point compared to the current model ?, this will put me out of the market all together
