Not long after Nissan announced that the GT-R will soon be axed in Australia, Audi has revealed that the R8 has also been discontinued.
A spokesperson from Audi Australia stated that the R8 model sold in Australia has a specific engine tune which is no longer produced by the car’s German factory, prompting the automaker’s local division to decide against re-homologating or re-engineering the car for a market as small as Australia.
“The current generation of the Coupe and Spyder are no longer offered in Australia, for local homologation reasons. The R8 will continue to be produced for other markets,” Audi Australia told Car Sales. “AUDI AG is currently discussing various concepts for a possible R8 successor, but no decision has been made so far.”
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It is understood that Audi Australia stopped importing the R8 to Australia several months ago and only a handful remain on dealership floors.
While the R8 was available in Australia since 2007, when the first generation was launched, only 681 examples have been sold. To put that into perspective, Audi sold 581 examples of the R8 in the United States alone in 2020 and that figure was down on the 927 units sold in 2018 and the record 1,145 that were sold during 2011.
The local axing of the R8 comes just a few months after Audi announced some updates for the car in the U.S. Most notably, it has increased grunt for the R8 RWD model, pushing its 5.2-liter naturally-aspirated V10 up to 562 hp and 406 lb-ft (550 Nm) of torque. Additionally, it is available with a new Sport Exhaust Package and a Dynamic Package.
