2027 Audi Nuvolari First Drive: Utterly Involving – Hagerty Media

Like the R8 before it, the Nuvolari is different from your typical brutal, uncompromising exotic. Nor is it so like a Lamborghini Temerario, though the two beasts are closely related. What is Audi’s latest supercar, then? Blindingly fast, yet totally accessible. Sharp-handling and quite comfortable. An absolute stunner, too. But best of all, the Audi Nuvolari is utterly involving. At full blast, anyway.

Naturally, it costs quite a lot. Despite a base price of €607,000 (about $679,700 before tax and extras), all 499 examples are long spoken for.

*

“Now please select the driving mode.” That’s the voice of Victor Underberg, performance manager for sports cars at Audi. He sounds surprisingly relaxed for a man who is about to ride shotgun in a 1001-horsepower supercar with me, a semi-retired car journalist who hasn’t been here to the Circuito Permanente del Jarama since Patrick Depailler won the Spanish GP in 1979. “There are five settings to choose from: Hybrid, Balanced, Dynamic, Dynamic Plus, and Track,” he advises. “You need to be in Track to fine-tune the balance via a second knob on the steering wheel.”

Rotating the thumbwheel, marked with a checkered flag, duly lights up four more options: Wet, Dry, Race and TC Off. Underberg spent the past five years in Sant’Agata, where he was instrumental in developing the Lamborghini Temerario, so I trust him when he suggests switching into Race. “It’s fun, and it has a built-in margin for error.” Thank god for that.

Hitting the start/stop button fires up the twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8, which hammers away behind our backs like a percussion drill on steroids. The sound is riotous, rather than melodious like a Ferrari, techno-concertante like a McLaren, or dum-dum rhythmic like a Mercedes-AMG. Redlined at 10,000 rpm, the Italo-German Kraftwerk motor is simply loud and waw-waw rowdy. Since the supplier of the sound processor integrated in the high-mounted dual-tailpipe exhaust went bankrupt several months ago, a couple of concealed speakers moonlight as brutally noisy in-cab heavy metal band substitutes. The gas-thirsty powerplant develops 800 hp between 9000 and 9750 rpm, along with a feisty 538 lb-ft of maximum torque, which is available from 4000 to 7000 rpm. But that’s not the full story: In addition there are three e-motors, each rated at 150 hp and 258 lb-ft, which boost the grand total to a whopping 1001 hp and 663 lb-ft. Those numbers produce sweaty palms even before the pit lane exit arrives.

Formula 1 staged eight Grands Prix at Jarama between 1968 and 1981. The relatively narrow, ancient rollercoaster track on the outskirts of Madrid combines little runoff space in critical corners with a weathered low-grip surface and a mixed bag of slow and fast bends. Our pace car is an Audi e-tron GT RS Performance, which makes me feel like a real dummy, because it can accelerate even faster and unleashes even more torque than our liquid-fueled exotic silverling. It’s only on the long start-finish straightaway (aptly named “Nuvolari,” after Tazio, the so-surnamed great Italian racer) that the hardcore supercar car will catch up with the sleek and near-silent electric four-door.

Specs: Audi Nuvolari

Price: From €607,000 in Germany; export pricing TBD; options list not yet available
Powertrain: 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 PHEV with eight-speed automatic, three e-motors
Output: 1001 hp and 663 lb-ft combined
Layout: Mid-engine, two-door, two-passenger AWD coupe
Weight: 3838 lb (dry)
0–60 mph: 2.6 sec
EPA-rated Fuel Economy: TBD
Competitors: Lamborghini Temerario, Ferrari 296 Speciale, McLaren Artura

Underberg clocked an indicated 187 mph before dropping all anchors. The sorcerer’s apprentice—yours truly—managed 10 mph less, nevertheless still grinning from ear to ear an hour later. In terms of top speed, the Nuvolari must fear no rival. At 219 mph, the wedge-shaped two-seater is faster than any Ferrari, Porsche, or McLaren currently on sale.

In Race mode, the ECU channels most of the momentum to the car’s short and boxy rear end. There, a pair of 325/30ZR21 Bridgestone Potenza tires are very nearly scalped by the massive twist action on overboost. But since stability control is still active, the low (47.4 inches) and wide (79.6 inches) two-seater cannot be coaxed into a long slide, and it won’t punish you for sudden mid-corner lift-off maneuvers, either. Breakaway is a super-smooth, slow-motion affair that feels more like an elegant waltz step than the harsh start to a bad ending. The adaptive release-and-catch steering makes everything feel under control at all times. One can select from three calibrations, which I’d describe in ascending order as a bit too light, just fine, and a tad heavy. The all-electric front axle and the mid-mounted combustion engine divide power duties, resulting in a commendably quick and slick torque vectoring sequence.

Audi’s new CTO, Rouven Mohr, who used to run R&D at Lamborghini, sheds light on how the car drives compared with its sibling, the Temerario: “In the other car from that other brand, the driver sometimes feels like riding a bull. The Nuvolari is a less radical but no less rewarding piece of kit. The newly introduced Predictive Ride system ensures a more precise handling as well as improved controllability at the limit.”

Predictive Ride, Mohr explains, can engage the all-wheel drive, braking, and active aerodynamics systems to prevent loss of traction before it happens. “It uses real-time wheel-selective data, like six different longitudinal and rotational acceleration forces, plus the steering angle, to compute an optimum mix of speed, traction, and grip,“ he goes on. “In a next step, we could, with the help of AI, subtly modulate the torque distribution to assist a not-yet perfect driver, thereby further enhancing the active safety of quattro four-wheel drive. The philosophy is not to merely react to a wheel losing grip but to anticipate critical situations and intervene proactively.”

The most significant difference between the Nuvolari and the Temerario is perhaps the all-new suspension. Audi ditched the magnetorheological dampers for all-new solid piston shock absorbers and springs codeveloped with the German chassis specialists KW. “We wanted the Audi to ride better than the other car,“ quips Underberg, “and we were also looking for tangible advances in terms of traction and grip.”

Five fast laps, plus a cool-down lap. That’s all Audi lets us do, and making eyes at team members like Rover begging for one more biscuit doesn’t help.

What’s the key takeaway from the short track session? The Nuvolari’s high-output engine needs to be revved to deliver, but above 6000 rpm in second, third, and fourth gear, the car is a weapon. There are very few other supercars that can match the massive physical afterburner urge between 125 and 200 mph.

The car is strikingly fast, ground-effect planted, and intriguingly playful. Although the licorice-sticky tires turn almost treadless by mid-afternoon, there is a putty-in-your-hands creaminess to the way this car carves, pseudo-drifts, wrestles, and storms through corners. While the two front motors support the rotational turn-in motion, the rear e-motor sandwiched between V-8 and transmission fine-tunes the handling by modulating traction and assuring stability, without the driver ever needing to touch the brake pedal.

Audi’s idea was to create a system that combines higher damping forces—think compression and rebound as well as low- and high-frequency excitations—with softer springs. In an ideal world, this set-up would put quantifiably more rubber on the ground more firmly and more consistently. The only complication is the manual adjustment mechanism, which requires a couple of wrenches and a jack, not unlike the solution found for the defunct Audi RS 5 Competition. Push-button activation would be more convenient, of course, but the ends justifies the means: The revised suspension is indeed less busy and more compliant, trading drama for control and harshness for progressive action.

All of this underscores what Audi intended: that the Nuvolari behave not like a Temerario in disguise. This is a proper, no-nonsense pacesetter, which will hopefully be followed next year by an equally well balanced and dynamic all-electric Concept C replacement for the TT. One would have to drive the Audi and the Lamborghini at length, side by side, to highlight explicit differences and similarities, but it didn´t take us more than a few laps to agree that the bearer of the four rings is, compared to the Temerario, less edgy at the limit, less wayward under braking, and less eager to pick a fight with every bump and curb it can find.

“We explicitly did not want to build a hypercar,“ states Mohr. “That’s why there are no go-faster add-ons like flicks, splitters, and air dams blighting the very clean basic shape. The active rear spoiler is not a towering double-decker but a neatly integrated aero aid. As part of the drag reduction system, it can be locked in low- and high-downforce positions, but it is not big and strong enough to act as an airbrake.”

The contrasting grille (dubbed “vertical frame”) is more than an attention-grabber; it also sucks in plenty of air and sends it through the center S-duct system for reduced front axle lift and a substantially increased maximum downforce of 881 pounds. While the two underfloor vortex generators are said to enhance the steering precision, the three underfloor channels, the lateral venturi scoops, and the enlarged rear diffuser boost the high-speed suction effect by up to 40%.

Stability is the Nuvolari’s major forte. It possesses unerring directional stability on the circuit’s long straight, exhibiting magnetic cornering stability even when radii and gradients change.

It remains poised under hard braking, too. Audi is quoting 101 feet for the 62-to-0 stunt. Impressive indeed, but even more so than the somewhat academic stopping distance is the fuss-free efficiency and repeatability. The whole experience boggles the mind: no acting up, no pulling to one side or the other, no fading, no fishtailing, even when diving into a tricky downhill S-bend. The front discs, straddled by 10-piston fixed calipers, measure 16.9 inches—about the size of a junior manhole cover. The unique sandwich design pioneers extra-long, evenly arranged carbon fibers which promise a 21% greater heat dissipation for faster cooling. Maximum brake force feels like an eerie, in-your-face explosion of negative thrust.

Out of the 499 units, 61 will be equipped with the R26 package inspired by Audi’s F1 livery. Why 61? Because Tazio Nuvolari won 61 Grands Prix. Clients are welcome to specify just about any custom paint finish—solid, metallic, matte, two-tone, variable gradient, you name it. In addition, there is a selection of curated upholsteries and trim materials available, as well as an exclusive set of died-to-order thin-weave carbon-fiber hang-on body panels. Tick all the boxes, and you might be able to create a seven-figure invoice.

Production is a tricky, multi-stage exercise. While the metal elements of the body-in-white are welded together in Neckarsulm, Germany, the carbon-fiber parts are to be provided by an Italian specialist supplier. From Modena, the car moves to Sant’Agata, where it is painted and mechanically completed before being shipped to Ingolstadt for the final assembly. At three units per day, it will take until the end of next year to complete the build run.

After another round of begging, we were granted a long-ish loop on public roads, which turned out to be a bit anticlimactic. The route was dotted with fat rumble strips and tall sausage curbs, the lead car drove painfully slow, and there was too much traffic to even think about putting such a machine to the real test. Although the car we drove was fitted with a useful rearview camera, most everything behind the B-pillars is a visual no man’s land. More downsides: The low-speed ride on broken-up pavement is nothing to write home about, the dashboard is too bland for such huge money, connectivity and infotainment are second-rate at best, the instrument graphics fail to excite, and the Temerario steering-wheel with the silly fingertip-button indicators on it is an ergonomic faux pas.

Credit is due to the thinly padded but surprisingly comfortable and very supportive bucket seats, the relatively generous head- and legroom, and the high build quality. Although this Audi turns more heads than a pink pony, we wouldn’t waste its talents on urban catwalks and boulevards. Instead, the Nuvolari deserves to be unleashed on an empty autobahn, on a set of challenging mountain roads, or on the race track of your choice. Like il grande Tazio, the Nuvolari shines brightest where no limits apply.

2027 Audi Nuvolari

Highs: Brutally potent yet totally composed; an eye-catcher par excellence that can be personalized ’til it hurts; inspiring handling, surefire brakes.

Lows: Hideously expensive; noisy but not especially nice-sounding; uneventful cabin.

Takeaway: The Nuvolari is a fine plaything for confined habitats or open roads, where such speed can be unleashed, but none of the supercar’s personality comes out in daily driving.