So is it a new firm, this Audi lot? Or is it a DKW? What has Auto Union got to do with it? That was the branding muddle Audi had to deal with when its plain little saloons appeared in the 1960s. From that it became a prestige badge, a rally superstar and a serial Le Mans victor. Quite a journey. In the next of Porter Press’s Great Cars series, Ian Wagstaff homes in on the sports-prototype that in 2000 first pasted the four-ring symbol into the 24-hour winner list – the R8.
Well, not quite. Porter’s chosen example here didn’t carry the 2000 laurels, though it did back up its victorious sister car with a hard-won second place, fighting back from a series of niggling delays after six hours in the lead. And only a month afterwards it was off to race in the ALMS where it had an active two-year career, and two years on again began historic racing. It’s still going, making it the most-raced Audi R8, with appearances at many high-profile events including Le Mans Classic and Goodwood where it was reunited with its Le Mans pilot Allan McNish.