Detroit 2008: Audi R8 V12 TDI

The Audi R8 has been receiving lots of press and just as many awards recently. And it gets our vote for sexiest car ever built. It's hard to believe that Audi could find a way to top their super car. But they did find a way. Behold the R8 V12 TDI. Yes TDI as in Diesel. Audi took a page from their American LeMans success to combine sports cars with diesel power.

Audi took the 6.0 liter V12 used in last years Q7 concept car from last year and stuffed it into the R8 super car. This R8 has 500 horses on tap while the V8 version stops at 420. Though where the R8 V12 TDI shines is torque. All 738 lb ft of them. This enables the R8 V12 to roar to 62 mph in 4.2 seconds. With a top speed of 186 mph. Being a super car, you'd figure it would get horrible gas mileage. Wrong. 23mpg, that's really impressive for any car in this class. Top that with Audi's Quattro full time all wheel drive and it makes one superb handling car.

The front bumper has been redesigned and looks awesome. And how about the glass roof with built in air scoop to feed air to the motor.

Now this is a concept car, though it certainly looks good enough and feasible enough to be a production car. Hopefully Audi won't wait too long to decide to produce this bad boy.

Source: Audi.