Spied: McLaren 650S and Audi R8

I was in the middle of my commute from work to home last week and spied a number of McLaren 650Ss and an Audi R8 at the Bentley dealership.  You don't see that many McLarens around, so those stood out.   The R8 does too, although these cars are a bit more common than the McLaren.  I was helplessly drawn over to look at them.  It was raining, so nobody else was out on the lot except for high performance auto fanatics who can't resist great design and won't let a little foul weather curb their enthusiasm.  There were a few other McLarens on the lot, but I snapped this 650S in black:

 

McLarens are made in England and are a street car spin off of Formula 1 technology.  The 650S was revealed only this year.  Like its other high-end brand cousins, the 650S is a supercar, a trend that seems to be growing and looking like it will continue in the near future.  The 650S has a unique carbon-fiber composite chassis, a 3.8-litre V8 twin-turbo engine, sporting 500 ft-lbs of torque. It can reach a speed of up to 207 mph.

Not to be outdone, Audi came out with the R8 in 2008.  Here's the one I spied, also in black:

I wasn't certain about exactly what year this R8 pictured here is, so won't comment about this one in particular.  But in general, the R8 comes in your choice of a V8 or V10, and like the Porsche 911 is a two seater, although the Audi is a mid-engine.  The 2014 has a big 4.2-liter V8-- located behind the passenger seats- that gives 430 HP and 317 ft-lbs of torque.  It comes with a new Audi automated manual transmission, but you can get it with a traditional manual transmission if that's what you want.  When I checked it out I was taken with the louvered back design shown above.  It's sleek and cool.  The inside is beautiful too.  I didn't get any pictures of the interior of this one but you can see that and lots more at http://www.audiusa.com/models/audi-r8.