Audi R8 vs Ford Transit Custom

What's the difference?

The Audi R8 V10 RWD and V10 Performance Quattro have their own personalities. I'm a big fan of the lower-powered rear-wheel drive car, but the Performance is the ultimate here with better brakes and that 330km/h top speed. Either way the R8 is a true supercar, but one that doesn't have to be driven gingerly as though something may break off.

The Ford Transit Custom Trail has plenty of appeal as a work van or a camper fit-out candidate. It’s a well-packaged, comfortable and contemporary van that’s nice to drive and as a bonus, with all-wheel drive it’s given the scope of capability to be able to tackle mild off-roading situations with confidence.

It’s built for work and play and though it’s limited to two-up for travels, the Trail offers so much potential as a camper conversion for adventure seekers its few niggles are easily forgotten when you’re busy making memories.

Lamborghini styling can look over the top, McLarens can sometimes appear delicate and fragile, and Ferraris seem to be everywhere, and even for me, begin to blend into one.

The R8, though, looks exactly how an Audi supercar should look – understated, tough and serious. Have you seen that Audi advert with the R8 on a dyno not wearing any pants? That sounds ridiculous but Google it because it sums up what the R8 is – a real car with a raw race car underneath, that's meant to be driven comfortably on the road and hard on a race track and the styling indicates that intent with little in the way of fanfare.

Well, there is that big window at the back which shows off the engine and the 'side blades' that surround the large vents carved into the side of the car to cool the engine.

The latest update has taken the design from the second-gen car which arrived in 2016 and added a new grille, front bumper, door sills and vents in the rear bumper. It's a more angular, sharper, and busier design with more vents and winglets than ever.

The R8 V10 RWD and R8 V10 Performance are close to identical in their styling. You can pick the Performance by its gloss carbon front spoiler, side sills, mirror caps and rear diffuser. The RWD has gloss black elements instead.

Which looks best: the Coupe or Spyder? That's a personal thing, but I reckon race cars need to have a hardtop roof, so it's the coupe for me, please.

Built using the 'Audi Space Frame' which weighs only 200kg, the R8 is 4426mm long and just 1240mm tall, but at 1940mm across it has a wide, planted stance.

It looks like a van but with some striking yet low-key flourishes that all kind of work as a whole. Those include a Trail grille and the matt black alloy wheels. The yellow sticker-pack is a neat touch.

The Trail has more presence than a regular Trend with its 30mm-taller raised suspension and overall adventure-ready look with strong front end and chunky wheel arches.

The striking but low-key theme continues inside with a neatly laid-out yet spartan cabin. The two synthetic leather seats are topped with Trail embossing and lined with yellow stitching.

The cabin is separated from the rear cargo area by a bulkhead, which incorporates a small wired window.

The R8 is a two-seater supercar and practicality isn't high on its 'to do' list with limited cabin storage in the form door pockets almost as small as my jeans pockets, two cupholders hiding under a trapdoor in the centre armrest, a hidey hole in front of the shifter containing a wireless charger and two USB ports and the glove box.

As for the boot – there are two: one in the nose with a 112-litre cargo capacity and another behind the mid-mounted engine with 226 litres.

Room for people, well you and a friend, is excellent. I'm 191cm (6'3") tall with a 2.0m wingspan and found the footwell deep and spacious, while head and shoulder room is also good.

It’s a van so there are two distinct sections to the Trail, the cabin and the load space.

Firstly, the cabin. More a work-friendly than family-friendly interior, this Trail is a two-seater with plenty of durable plastic everywhere – ready for work and life – as well as charging (with USB-A and -C ports) and storage (including a van-favourite dash-top slot for logbooks etc, outboard moulded cupholders and a nifty pop-out cupholder), all amenities enough to cope with most daily van-related duties.

The seats are comfortable, supportive and have a fold-down lock-in-place armrest.

Now for the load space. There are no seats back there and as such it has plenty of potential as a work van or touring vehicle.

Access to the rear load space is via a barn door at the back and this Trail has a sliding door on both sides.

The cargo area is substantial – 3002mm long (to the bulkhead; 3450mm long if load-through hatch is used), 1392mm wide (between wheel arches) and 1425mm high (floor to roof). Easily big enough for work equipment or recreational gear. It can cope with four Euro pallets (each measuring 1200mm x 800mm) and it has a listed maximum load volume (with the bulkhead) of 6.8 cubic metres.

Load height through the rear barn doors is 531-585mm, depending on how much weight is already onboard.

The load space has the aforementioned metal bulkhead (with window and load-through hatch), load area protection kit (full height walls and moulded floor), LED lights and eight tie-down loops.

Otherwise, this is a load area ripe for customisation. Maybe a plethora of shelves for a tradie, or some bedding and extra storage for an adventurous person or couple.

The 2025.75Y Ford Transit Custom Trail has a MSRP of $61,990 (excluding on-road costs).

Standard features onboard include a 13-inch multimedia touchscreen (with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto), a 12-inch digital instrument display and synthetic leather upholstery with Trail logos on the seats.

Other gear includes an eight-way manually adjustable driver’s seat, keyless entry and start, front and rear parking sensors, climate-control air and automatic LED headlights.

It also has all-wheel drive, LED headlights and daytime running lights, a variant-specific grille, black wheel arch moulding and side strip, yellow exterior decals and 16-inch matt black Trail twin-spoke alloy wheels.

The standard no-cost exterior paint is 'Frozen White'. Anything else – 'Agate Black Metallic', 'Grey Matter', 'Magnetic' or 'Moondust Silver' – will cost you $700.

There are two grades in the Audi R8 range – the entry-point R8 V10 RWD which has rear-wheel drive (RWD), and the R8 V10 Performance Quattro which has all-wheel drive (AWD).

Both obviously have V10 engines, it's a naturally aspirated 5.2-litre petrol unit (so no turbos here), but the RWD makes less power and torque at 397kW and 540Nm, while the Performance produces 449kW and 560Nm.

The V10 is mounted behind the driver's seat but ahead of the rear axle making it mid-engined car. The engine even has its own window and you can see it in there with its face pressed up against the glass.

There are two body styles as well – the Coupe and Spyder (convertible, roadster, just another word for a retractable soft roof). We'll get to the prices in the next section, but let's talk about the more interesting numbers such as top speeds.

The V10 RWD in coupe form can reach 324km/h and the Spyder can hit 322km/h while the V10 Performance Coupe and Spyder are both a smidge quicker at 330km/h.

Those are all go-straight-to-jail speeds in Australia, so if you're tempted to fact check my numbers then do it on a racetrack. Audi holds excellent track days – I've done them and you'll not only get to drive the R8 as fast as you can, the instructors will help you improve your advanced driving skills, too. Do it, it could save your life.

Acceleration from 0-100km/h is rapid – 3.7 seconds and 3.8 seconds for the V10 RWD Coupe and Spyder respectively, while the V10 Performance Coupe and Spyder can nail it in 3.2 seconds and 3.3 seconds.

The V10 engine has a cylinder-on-demand feature which can shut down five of the cylinders while cruising on a motorway, say at 110km/h. It's a fuel-saving system, but keep in mind this V10 loves petrol and lots of it – I've hidden that all the way down the bottom of this review.

Shifting gears in all R8s is a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.

The Ford Transit Custom Trail has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine producing 125kW at 3500rpm and 390Nm at 1750-2500rpm.

The Trail has a clever eight-speed automatic transmission and an on-demand all-wheel drive system.

It all works rather well, but it’s a van afterall and as such it is less dynamic and more dependably driveable than perhaps a cross-shopped SUV wagon. However, as an AWD van the Trail can be trusted to keep its grip on wet bitumen, soggy grass and loosely-gravelled tracks and that’s a strong part of its appeal over a 2WD van.

That's like asking how many calories are in this pavlova that I'm about to push into my mouth? Seriously if you're asking then you shouldn't be eating it – or driving the R8.

But just for the record, according to Audi the RWD R8 uses 12.0L/100km in Coupe form and 12.2L/100km in Spyder guise after a combination of urban and open roads, while the AWD R8 of course will use more at 13.4L/100km for both Coupe and Spyder.

The Ford Transit Custom Trail has an official combined cycle (urban/extra-urban) fuel consumption figure of 8.5L/100km. On this test I recorded 8.8L/100km.

The Trail has a 70-litre fuel tank so going by my on-test fuel figure you could reasonably expect a driving range of about 795km from a full tank of diesel. However, as with any vehicle, once you’ve loaded the Trail with real-world burdens (e.g kids, dogs, camping gear, etc) you’ll soon see that fuel consumption increase.

A race circuit is the best place to test the performance of an Audi R8. I've been lucky enough to have done this in the past, but for this update of the R8 the Australian launch was held on public roads and included a convoy of RS models such as the RS 6 Avant, RS 7, RS Q3 and TT RS.

Even then I think I was 'stitched up' because I began the day in the R8 V10 Performance Coupe but spent almost the entirety of my allocated time in roadworks at 40km/h before swapping to an RS Q3.

So, while I can't honesty comment about the dynamics on this updated R8 V10 Performance Coupe I can tell you that having driven every iteration of the R8 since 2012 that it's a weapon, with helicopter-like visibility out of that large front window.

If, like me, you think turbos are 'cheating' (superchargers are fine), then you'll love the linear power delivery of the R8's naturally aspirated V10, and while I love front-engined sportscars, nothing beats a mid-engined car for the feeling of balance and lightness in the nose while having the sound of thousands of explosions going off just behind your back.

Having AWD is not just great for acceleration and perfect traction from Audi's quattro system, I think it's a good safety feature in a supercar, and while only your judgements can stop things going pear shaped, the system will be there to help on slippery roads.

The following day was different. I was in the R8 V10 RWD, the country roads were superb and while it wasn't a racetrack it was enough to get a hint of the capabilities of the RWD R8.

While the R8 V10 RWD feels the same to sit in with the same great view, it feels different to drive than its faster sibling, in a good way. First there's the noticeable power difference – more than 50kW and 20Nm less – but also the lack of AWD makes the front end feel more pointable, and the car feel more like a traditional sportscar that pushes from behind rather than pulling from the front. Less power, but more fun.

The RS cars in our test convoy were all awesome machines, but stepping out of even the RS6 Avant and slipping down into the R8 cockpit was like getting into a UFO – it's so far ahead dynamically of any other Audi that all I could do was laugh like an idiot. Corners which were making an RS 7 really struggle, were handled effortlessly by the R8. And in a straight line it's a bullet in a barrel.

The Performance has the better brakes: 380mm ceramic discs with six piston calipers up front and 356mm discs with four piston calipers at the rear. The RWD has steel discs – 365mm with eight piston calipers up front and 356mm discs with four piston calipers in the rear.

Keep in mind if you are planning on track days, you'll find the ceramic discs costly to replace, and beside the stopping power of the steel ones is excellent.

And yet, on pot holed course bitumen the ride is a lot more comfortable than you might think and having driven the Performance in traffic it's a much nicer place to sit than the claustrophobic cabin of a McLaren 570S. You could honestly use the R8 daily.

It’s easy to get in and out of the Trail’s driver seat with a wide-opening door and a big step to help you inside.

The seats are comfortable and it’s simple enough to dial-in your driving position via the tilt-and-reach adjustable steering wheel and manually-adjustable seat.

Word of warning: the auto transmission is operated via a stalk mounted on the right-hand side of the steering wheel column, which takes some getting used to.

Once underway, the Trail is punchy enough around town and in the suburbs with its 2.0L 'EcoBlue' turbo-diesel engine offering a more-than-adequate amount of power and torque (125kW and 390Nm) and its clever auto helping out with nifty moves through traffic (for a van, anyway).

Visibility is impressive from the cabin and you’re afforded a convenient vantage point with the Trail standing a bit taller than its regular Transit Custom stablemates as it’s on lifted suspension, but feeling composed on most surfaces.

The Trail has a listed kerb weight of 2046kg and a turning circle of 12.1m, pretty standard for a long wheelbase van, so this is not an insubstantial vehicle and it’s a bit tricky to 'flip a u-ee' if the situation demands it.

It has six drive modes – 'Normal', 'Eco', 'Slippery', 'Tow/Haul', 'Sport', 'Trail' – which each adjust engine torque, throttle response and traction control, among other things, to suit the road surface and conditions.

But we’re all here to see how it goes off-road, aren’t we?

Well, obviously this is no rock-crawling machine and it’s not intended to be. It’s best thought of as having an all-wheel drive system that gives this van mild off-road capabilities, as in it can tackle wet bitumen, soggy grass, lightly corrugated bush tracks and very shallow mud puddles with more confidence than the Transit Custom Trend it's based on.

In a nutshell, the AWD Trail will be able to handle most low-level traction-compromised scenarios. But it does not have enough ground clearance, wheel articulation, grip or underbody protection to tackle any terrain beyond modest off-roading.

Speaking of grip, the Trail as standard rides on Bridgestone Duravis R660 (215/65 R16) rubber, a van/light truck commercial tyre and they are not so well suited to dirt tracks and the like. Grippier all-terrain tyres would help this van perform slightly better off-road than on its showroom rubber.

In its favour, the Trail has a front skid plate and underbody protection in case it cops some knock from the ground during its adventures.

Not in its favour, however, especially as a potential touring vehicle, is the fact it has a space-saver spare wheel and tyre.

If you’re thinking of using your Trail as a tourer, it’s worth knowing payload is listed as 1179kg, maximum braked trailer towing capacity is 2500kg, Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) is 3225kg and GCM is 5725kg.

The Ford Transit Custom was tested as part of ANCAP’s Commercial Van Safety Comparison in 2024 and received a Platinum score “achieving a near-perfect score in safety assessments”, according to ANCAP.

The Trail has all of the Custom’s driver-assist tech and safety features, including six airbags (driver, front passenger, front side curtain and front side seat), as well as AEB, adaptive cruise control (with stop and go), traffic sign recognition and lane centering, blind-spot monitoring and assist, rear cross-traffic alert, forward collision warning, hill launch assist, side wind stabilisation, front and rear parking sensors, a rear view camera (with 180-degree split view) and on-board tyre pressure monitoring.

The R8 is covered by Audi's three-year, unlimited kilometre warranty which not only falls behind in duration compared to mainstream brands but also its direct rival Mercedes-Benz which now has five-year, unlimited kilometre coverage.

Service intervals are every 12 months or 15,000km but unlike other Audi models there isn't a three-year or five-year plan available.

Ford’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty applies to the Trail.

Servicing is set down for every 12 months or 30,000km and capped-price servicing is offered. Four scheduled services will set you back $2000 (including a brake fluid change at year three) which isn't over the top for a vehicle of this type.

Ford Australia has about 195 independent Ford dealers in Australia, with many located in metropolitan or suburban areas.