A ton of cars, both old and new, were shown off at the recent New York International Auto Show, but it was Audi's R8 Coupe that came out on top.
Declared the 2016 World Performance Car, this year's R8 marks Audi's eighth win in the World Car Awards. The car company has won in two other categories before: Car Design of the Year and Car of the Year.
It was in 2005 that Audi won its first World Car Award for Car of the Year for its Audi A6. This year's win for the R8 would be the fourth time Audi takes home the World Performance Car award. Overall, this latest win makes the Audi R8 the most successful car model in the history of the World Car Awards.
The race to the award started off with an initial entry list of nine vehiclesthat ultimately got stripped down to just three: the Audi R8, the Honda Civic Type R and the Mercedes-Benz AMG C63 Coupe. In the end, the final decision was based on votes from an international panel of 73 automotive journalists from 23 countries around the world.
"We are delighted that the Audi R8 has been voted as the 2016 World Performance Car ... With its distinctive design, its driving dynamics and its closeness to racing, the R8 is one of the strongest calling cards for the four rings and is the flagship car from Audi Sport," shares Board Member for Sales and Marketing at AUDI AG, Dietmar Voggenreiter.
The Audi R8 on display at the NYIAS is the highest-performing Audi production model to date. Equipped with a V10 mid-engine and Audi's newly developed quattro all-wheel drive system, the R8 offers its driver a cutting-edge vehicle that's still fun and manageable to drive either fast or slow.
Specifically, the new Audi R8 packs 610 horsepower and goes from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than 3.2 seconds while reaching a top speed of more than 205 miles per hour. That's not too much of a surprise considering the lineage of the vehicle that's won the 24 Hours of Le Mans 13 times since 2000.
