2012 Audi R8 Facelift Revealed In Unofficial Photo?

It’s knew that the Audi R8 has been on the market for five years and dust began to settle on it. Considering that an update to the Audi R8 is expected sometime in 2012, the image above may be in the preparation stages for a debut at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show, next month.

This image, apparently leaked out together with some other photos, first published by automotive blog Fourtitude, may provide us with our first look at the revised Audi R8.

Looking at it at this small photo, we all see the headlight. Still, taking a second look, the photo reveals much more.

First of all, keep in mind that, depending on the model, the R8 features either two or three horizontal slats, which are designed to optimise airflowit’s. Weel it’s obviously that the car in the image has no front side air intake slats. Looking at this image we can see just a gaping hole, with the headlights suspended delicately at the top.

Second of all, we see the LED-rich, longer and more aggressively shaped headlight. It’s possible this is a concept component, but likely not.

Beside this, we can see the hexagonal grille. Notice how Audi’s been cutting the corners off the top portion of its grille on the A8, A7, A6 and new A5? The cut is here on this grille too, subtle but there and noticeably different from the current R8 grille.

Finally, the grille texture, which is unlike anything we’ve seen in any current R8 and closer to the grille mesh texture of some RS cars.

Anyway, the updated R8 range is expected to come with the V8 and V10 engines. Still, there are also rumours that Audi has been testing 2.5 TFSI and 3.0 TFSI mules of the R8, although these are unconfirmed at this time.

In order to improve automatic driveability, it is expected Audi’s dual-clutch S tronic transmission will replace the current R tronic single-clutch unit in the new range.

So, what do you think, is this the new 2012 Audi R8?

Source: Fourtitude