Audi R8 vs LDV Terron 9

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.

There’s no doubt that the current crop of Chinese utes are better than previous versions. Similarly, there’s little doubt that private buyers are having a big say in which way the market is headed, particularly when it comes to alternatives to the Thai-built legacy players. And that’s precisely where the Terron 9 plays its best game. The value for money is hard to argue with, and the sheer size of the thing gives it an extra dimension if that’s what you think you need in a dual-cab. While we have no quarrel with the driveline of the Terron 9, it will be nice when somebody finally adds an on-bitumen four-wheel-drive mode to one of these in this price range. Until then, the Terron 9 can’t be criticised for this omission. In the meantime, the Terron 9 exhibits quite a bit of refinement in the way both the engine and transmission work together. Our biggest complaint is the way the driver-assistance systems have been calibrated. The driver-distraction warning is almost comical (for the first five minutes, anyway) in its zeal, and the lane-keeping assistance program is bordering on scary in the wrong circumstances. Again, LDV is not alone in this regard, but as a clean-sheet design, sketched up in a driver-assisted world, perhaps we were expecting a little more from this ute.

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.

While the Terron 9 remains a ladder-chassis design with the body plonked on top (just like traditional four-wheel drives and most other dual-cabs) there is one important departure in design terms. And it’s one that rules out a whole sub-class of this type of vehicle.

Because the body sides are one piece in the Terron, with no gap between the rear bulkhead and the tray, there’s no way to turn the thing into a cab-chassis with a drop-side tray or service body. Yes, you can add a canopy to the existing design (LDV is working on its accessory line-up for the Terron right now) but there’s no cab-chassis variant now or in the works.

That might seem a bit odd, but when you consider the vast majority of dual-cabs are, in fact, styleside utes, maybe the sales hit won’t be a huge one. That’s especially so when you consider many of the Chinese utes rely on private buyers, not fleet customers, for their sales volumes. And in any case, says LDV, the way the body is constructed allows for a little more rear seat legroom and a touch more cargo space length for the same overall length. Which the company believes is a trade-off worth sticking with.

There’s also been a clear brief for the Terron 9 to make a visual statement. While it’s dimensions put it somewhere between the mainstream dual-cabs and the full-sized American pick-ups we see, the styling definitely leans towards the latter. The grille is huge, the vertical tail-lights very Stateside and the whole thing looks imposing. I’ll personally draw the line at attractive, but it’s definitely imposing.

The most adventurous piece of interior design must be the electronic door handles which need just a simple press to open the doors. There’s a manual, cable-operated door opener hidden in each door pocket if things go wrong electrically at some stage.

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.

A longer, wider cargo bed is probably one of the Terron 9’s best party tricks. Compared with the T60, the Terron is larger in every direction and extends that lead into the tub’s dimensions where it emerges with 1230mm between the wheel arches and a cargo bed length of 1600mm (90mm more than the T60 Pro).

That’s partly all possible by the extra wheelbase which, at 3300mm, is about as big as it gets in this class of ute, although the turning circle has grown to 13.1m compared with the T60’s tighter 12.7m.

A spray-in tub liner is standard as is the spring-assisted tailgate. Pony up for the ritzier, Evolve version, and you add cargo rails atop the tub sides and cargo-bed lighting.

Inside the tray, there are four decent tie-down hooks nice and low in the tub and plastic side toppers to prevent damage to the tub’s top rail. The tailgate is a clever design that is supported by springs and struts so that it drops in a controlled way and is very light to lift back up. The latch on the top corner of the tray is odd, but the tailgate can be opened via the key fob, too.

The biggest omission in the tray is the lack of any power socket.

Inside, the cabin is wide and features a pair of cup-holders down low in the centre console, as well as a USB-A, USB-C and a 12-volt socket placed somewhat awkwardly in the centre bin. The front arm-rest looks like it should incorporate a wireless phone charger, which it doesn’t. Yet. Watch this space, is the whisper. A reach and height adjustable steering column is also a nice addition at this price-point. And, thankfully, LDV has worked out that most people don’t want to go fishing through a menu to adjust the climate control. So the Terron 9 has actual buttons on the dashboard. Hallelujah.

Side steps are standard and help you in and out of the cabin, and there are grab-handles in the right places, too. Rear seat space is generous and even the cloth trim of the entry-level version is not the cheap-and-nasty sort, even if it’s far from sporty looking.

The indicator wand is on the `wrong’ side for Australia, partly because the gear selector is a wand on the other side of the steering column. Some users will spend the first few days hitting the gear selector in error. The starter is a push button, but placed in the conventional position of a standard ignition key. Nice touch.

The Terron 9 will be available initially in entry-level Origin specification and, following that in the next few weeks, a plusher Evolve variant with a mixed bag of additions, some of which extend its off-road appeal, and some of which don’t.

Kicking off with the $50,990 Origin (drive-away for ABN holders) or $53,674 drive-away for private buyers, the range then ramps up to the Evolve model at $55,990 for ABN holders and $58,937 drive-away for private buyers. But if you are an ABN holder and you get in quick, there’s $1000 discount on both grades as a launch deal.

The base vehicle is equipped with 18-inch alloy wheels with a highway-oriented tyre as opposed to the more off-roady All Terrains some competitors use. A tow-bar is standard kit as are LED headlights, a tailgate helper spring, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto phone connectivity, roof rails, twin 12.3-inch digital screens, automatic headlights, six-way powered font seats, rain-sensing wipers, front and rear parking sensors and a 360-degree camera system.

Clues that this is the entry-level car come in the form of the cloth upholstery and the four-speaker sound system, although the standard paddle shifters suggest otherwise.

Move up to the Evolve (when it arrives) and you’ll be adding 20-inch alloy wheels and tyres fitted with similar on-road oriented rubber to match. Sure, the 20s are blingy, but they won’t do anything for off-road ability. More relevant perhaps, is the addition of a front differential lock to join the rear locker standard on the base version.

On the luxe front, the Evolve adds eight-way adjustment for the powered front seats, heating and ventilation for those chairs as well as a massage function, heating for the rear seat, an eight-speaker stereo, ambient lighting, auto-folding exterior mirrors, and a trailer back-up assistance program.

Given the price-tag, the LDV puts up a strong value-for-money argument. Very few dual-cab utes at this price-point offer disc brakes on all four wheels, nor a standard tow-bar. And some of the ones that do supply only the hitch receiver, while LDV supplies the receiver, hitch and wiring loom.

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.

While peak outputs of both the Terron 9 and its smaller stablemate T60 seem similar on paper, in actual mechanical terms, there are a few important differences.

While the T60 uses a 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel with a pair of turbochargers, the Terron 9 is, on paper, a bit more simplified, but a lot newer in design terms. It’s a 2.5-litre unit, but reverts to a single turbocharger for a power peak of 163kW (three up on the T60, at slightly lower revs) and max torque of 520Nm (20 more). Fuel economy should be about line-ball with the T60 (more of that later).

Like the T60, the Terron 9 features an independent, coil-spring front end, but loses the T60 Plus’ coil-sprung rear axle for a leaf-sprung live axle.

The Terron 9 sticks with an eight-speed automatic transmission (although a different unit to the T60’s eight-speed unit) and also gets four-wheel drive with a low-ratio transfer case for proper off-roading. What’s missing (but nobody else at this price-point has it either) is Auto 4WD mode which allows the vehicle to be driven in four-wheel drive on bitumen surfaces. In the case of towing on a wet road, this is a huge boost to overall safety.

While the extra torque over the T60’s smaller engine seems welcome, it pays to remember that the larger Terron 9 is about 300kg heavier than its little brother. That said, the payload is a little higher at 1100kg for the Origin and 1005kg for the Evolve but with the vehicle’s full 3500kg on the tow-hitch, that payload falls to 600kg and 505kg respectively, thanks to the Terron’s 6500kg Gross Combination Mass. It’s far from alone in this regard.

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.

LDV’s official fuel consumption figure for the Terron 9 is 7.9 litres per 100km. That’s a number that you might – just might – see on a gentle highway run, but the 9.0 litres per 100km we recorded on our own test drive is probably closer to the day-to-day mark. That’s still pretty good, though and speaks of the tall gearing in the eight-speed automatic transmission.

Against the 80-litre standard fuel tank, that gives a useable range of close enough to 850km on the open road before you need to start watching the fuel gauge.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Terron 9 is Euro 5 complaint rather than meeting the tougher Euro 6 emissions targets. As such, it does not require the addition of AdBlue, representing another running cost saving.

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.

The first impression is that this is a very big vehicle. The passenger’s seat seems miles away and the bonnet is high, wide and mighty. That might not play too well off road where such a huge bonnet can hide the obstacles you’re about to fall off or drive over, but at least the forward facing camera system gives you a fighting chance. The other problem off-road is likely to be the sheer girth of the LDV where it might struggle a little for elbow room on tracks formed by smaller vehicles.

On the bitumen, the Terron 9 feels pretty relaxed with a gear for every occasion and an unstressed engine that is clearly tuned for mid-range oomph rather than top-end power. It’s smooth and relatively refined and, left to its own devices, the eight-speed automatic shifts up seamlessly.

The only complaint would be a degree of driveline shunt in the example we drove that could be both heard and felt, most notably in the transition from off-throttle to on-throttle, but also during the odd upshift. In 2025, this seems very odd indeed. We checked with LDV and they reckon this is a one-off glitch and possibly down to the car’s early build. Certainly, the second Terron 9 we sampled didn’t exhibit the same problem.

Ride quality is generally good and while the leaf-sprung rear axle can feel a little lively at times, it’s not a bad match for the front end, meaning that the car feels of a piece rather than two halves of a car fighting each other. While there is plenty of suspension movement, it also feels quite well controlled despite the obvious amount of unsprung mass. Cabin noise is commendably low, too. Thanks to tall gearing and that noise suppression, the Terron is a relaxed highway performer.

The steering is better than average for this type of vehicle with a good relationship between feel, weight and reaction speed. This is one ute than can be hustled along if it needs to be, and one on which the paddle-shifters are a meaningful inclusion (although they’re also a huge bonus when off-roading).

By far our biggest complaint is one that is far from exclusive to LDV. And that’s the (what we consider to be) poor calibration of some of the driver aids. The lane-keeping assistance is the main offender and, on a narrow road with a well-defined edge, the Terron 9 will intervene to prevent a wheel dropping onto the gravel. Unfortunately, at higher speeds, it does so with what feels like a stabbing action; violent enough to scare you the first time it happens. Could it frighten a timid or inexperienced driver into a crash? It’s a possibility we can’t ignore.

The driver-distraction warning is also, ironically, its own distraction. Take your eyes off the road for long enough to read the otherwise excellent dashboard display, and you’ll have the warning stepping in with a beeping admonishment as well as a visual warning that overrides the information you were trying to read in the first place. Again, LDV is hardly alone in this, but there’s definitely some recalibration required before the systems are as good as some of the (more expensive) competition’s equivalents.

Both versions of the Terron 9 will feature the same safety package, starting with the latest driver aids such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB), forward-collision warning, lane-keeping assistance, adaptive cruise control, traffic-sign recognition, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and a door-exit warning to help prevent `dooring’ cyclists. But as we mentioned earlier, the inclusion of these assistance systems is not enough; they also need to be calibrated properly.

Meantime, the forward-collision warning and autonomous braking functions work in a speed range of 8km/h to 140km/h.

It’s also good to see standard tyre pressure monitoring which really should be included on every vehicle aimed as heavily towards towing duties as this one.

The Terron 9 in all its forms also sports seven airbags including a centre-front air bag to minimise head clashes in a side impact.

The Terron 9 has not been assessed by ANCAP for a crash-safety rating, but it’s expected that ANCAP will, indeed, study overseas data on the vehicle and make a judgment in due course.

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.

The Terron 9 is covered by LDV’s rather excellent seven-year/200,000km warranty. Service intervals are every 12 months or 15,000km with the exception of the very first service which is due at 10,000km to account for the running-in oil the engine is filled with from the factory. This sounds like an extra impost, but mechanical sympathists will love this attention to detail.

LDV is looking into capped-price servicing but there’s no announcement to be made yet, nor any hint of what the price structure of that might look like if it happens.