How Much Is an Audi R8 Worth in 2026? A Sourced Value Guide by Generation, Engine, and Gearbox

The R8 question has a clean answer and a lever. Most examples are an attainable used supercar, but one option box, the gated manual, splits the market in two and pulls the top away from the rest.

How much is an Audi R8 worth in 2026?

A good first-generation Audi R8 (Type 42, 2008 to 2015) is worth about $72,000 in 2026 for a well-kept car with the automated R-tronic gearbox, with honest higher-mileage cars from the low $50,000s. The single biggest lever is the gearbox. First-generation cars with the gated six-speed manual have stopped depreciating and re-rated upward, and they now run from roughly $80,000 to $130,000, with low-mileage V10 manuals reaching $140,000 to past $200,000. The second-generation car (Type 4S, 2016 to 2023) is a separate, newer, dearer market from about $120,000 to $210,000, and the final 2023 R8 GT RWD sits higher again, near $250,000 to $291,500.

Last updated July 2026. Figures are a Molly's estimate drawn from public auction results, not asking prices. The gated-manual cars are valued as their own band. Methodology and sources are below.

Audi R8 value at a glance

The R8 name covers two generations, two engines, and two gearboxes, and blending them produces a number that fits none of them. This page values each on its own results. For the volume first-generation car, the automated versions sit near $72,000 in the middle, while the gated manual is a separate, higher band.

Basis: public auction results and aggregate market data, 2021 to 2026, including classic.com and The Classic Valuer records plus the dated lots named below. Audi built about 44,430 R8s in total between June 2006 and March 2024, per Wikipedia's Audi R8 entry, across the 4.2 V8 and 5.2 V10 engines. The headline median describes a good first-generation automated car; the gated-manual band and both later-car markets are stated separately.

Audi R8 value by condition, mileage, and gearbox

Within the first-generation car, condition and mileage set the band, but the gearbox sets which band you are in. This is the part of R8 value the general guides flatten. Every tier below ties to a real 2021 to 2026 result rather than a guess.

Two first-generation R8s at the same mileage can trade tens of thousands apart, because the next lever is not the odometer, it is the gate on the shifter. A car with three pedals and an open-gate metal shift gate is a different proposition from the same car with the R-tronic paddle box.

The gated manual: the lever that splits the R8 market

For most of the R8's used life it was the affordable way into a mid-engine V10, and the automated R-tronic cars still are. The gated six-speed manual is the exception, and it is the whole 2026 story. Audi offered the open-gate manual only on the first-generation car, and it walked away from three pedals entirely when the second-generation car arrived for 2016 with a dual-clutch S-tronic and nothing else. That makes the first-generation manual the last naturally aspirated V10 supercar you can buy new-adjacent with a clutch, and the market has noticed.

The premium is large and it is documented. Hagerty named the 2008 to 2015 R8 a market pick and specifically flagged the manual cars, and enthusiast and dealer reads put the gated-manual uplift at a wide margin over the equivalent R-tronic car. The manual cars are also genuinely thin on the ground. One 2012 V10 manual sold twice on Bring a Trailer was described as believed to be one of seven in its specification for North America, and a 2015 V10 Plus manual is reported as one of only eight sold in the United States that year. When something is that scarce and that loved, the automated-car comps stop being the right comps.

The lesson is the same discipline that governs the Ferrari F40's variant split, where the race-bred LM is never averaged into the road-car number: pin the exact configuration before you anchor on a price, because pricing a gated-manual R8 off automated-car results is a five-figure error in the seller's favor.

Audi R8 value by generation, engine, and gearbox: the split that moves the number

The R8 looks like one car and prices like six. The split runs on generation, on engine, and above all on gearbox. The figures below keep the separate markets separate, with the source of each read named, because a thin tier should be read as a thin tier.

The first-generation V8, sending about 430 hp through quattro, is the attainable R8 and always has been; the 5.2 V10 (about 525 hp, later 550 hp) is the one most buyers want to hear. But the gearbox cuts across both engines, and it is the gated manual, not the extra two cylinders, that does the most work at the top of the first-generation market. Get the identity right first, then price it.

The everyday-supercar frame: what the R8 competes with

The R8's value case rests on a fact the spec sheet undersells. It shares its 5.2 V10 and much of its aluminum spaceframe with the Lamborghini Gallardo and, in second-generation form, the Lamborghini Huracán, which trades from about $200,000 for a good used coupe. The R8 is the more usable, quieter, better-built version of the same V10 exotic, and for years it was the cheaper one too. That is the buyer framing that has held the floor: a documented mid-engine V10 with an Audi warranty network behind it, for the money of a well-optioned German sedan. Enthusiast market reads have put good used V8 cars from about $60,000, per CarBuzz, against a first-generation V8 coupe average near $68,610 on classic.com.

Against the wider everyday-supercar field, the R8 sits between the two poles buyers cross-shop. The Acura NSX, whose first-generation manual cars trade around $90,000, is the usability benchmark the R8 was measured against, and the mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette C8, a good used Stingray near $60,000, is the value benchmark that keeps the automated R8's floor honest. The R8's edge over both is the naturally aspirated V10 and, for the cars that have it, the gated manual neither rival offers today.

The R8 halos: GT, Competition, and the final GT RWD

Three limited cars sit above the volume R8s, and each trades on its own results rather than the model average.

R8 GT (first generation). The 2011 to 2012 R8 GT was a lightened, sharpened halo, 333 built worldwide), with reported US allocation between 90 and 150 cars. Its value read runs near the classic.com average of $118,940, with a good car reaching $150,000. A 2011 R8 GT brought $115,000 at Broad Arrow's Chattanooga auction in October 2024, and a UK-delivered Race Pack car with 49,200 miles, one of 33 for that market, sold for about £55,000.

R8 V10 Competition (first generation). The 2015 R8 Competition was the send-off for the first-generation US car, 60 built, all coupes, about 570 hp through the dual-clutch box. Its recorded high is $150,000 and its recorded low is $111,000, per classic.com, so even the rarest first-generation automated car sits below where the best manuals now trade.

R8 GT RWD (second generation). The 2023 R8 GT RWD closed the model out, 333 built, rear-wheel drive, about 602 to 620 hp. It is the dearest R8 of all and a separate market: the classic.com benchmark is $258,458, and the recorded high is $291,500 for a 2023 car in January 2024. As with the F40 LM, a GT RWD result should never be averaged into a standard R8 figure.

What drives an Audi R8's value

Six levers explain almost every dollar of difference between two R8s.

Gearbox. This is the dominant lever on the first-generation car. The gated six-speed manual carries a large, durable premium over the R-tronic, and it is the reason the top of the first-generation market has pulled away from the middle.

Generation and engine. The second-generation Type 4S trades well above the first-generation car, and within a generation the 5.2 V10 sits above the 4.2 V8. Identity first, price second.

Mileage and condition. Within each configuration, low, documented mileage commands a premium, and delivery-grade cars sit in their own air. Higher-mileage honest drivers anchor the floor near $50,000.

Rarity and edition. The R8 GT, the R8 Competition, and the GT RWD are the halos, and the scarce color and option combinations on ordinary cars, such as the one-of-eight manual V10 Plus, move money on top of the configuration.

Service and originality. The R8 V10 shares maintenance patterns with the Gallardo, and a documented service history with the expensive items addressed is worth real money over an unknown file. Unmodified, matching cars trade above heavily modified ones, a pattern visible where a stock manual outbid a twin-turbocharged automatic in 2026.

Market and warranty. US-delivered cars, warranty-network support, and clean title and history all price in. The R8 is a usable exotic, and buyers pay for the evidence that it was used and kept well.

Audi R8 price trajectory

The first-generation R8 spent a decade as the cheap way into a mid-engine V10, and the gated-manual cars have quietly climbed back out. A good first-generation manual sat near six figures early in its life, depreciated to a used-market low around 2018 to 2020 as any modern supercar does, and then reversed as the manual's scarcity and the end of the naturally aspirated era pulled it back up. That dip-then-recover shape is the whole story, and it is why the automated cars and the manual cars no longer track together.

Audi R8 gated-manual market level in USD. The dip to about $64,000 around 2019 reflects normal used-supercar depreciation; the recovery to roughly $115,000 by 2026 is the manual re-rating, drawn from classic.com and The Classic Valuer aggregates, Hagerty reads, and the dated results below.

The automated cars did not recover the same way. A good R-tronic V8 or V10 still trades in the $50,000s to low $90,000s, and the first-generation V10 coupe has recorded lows near $27,000 for a rough car, per classic.com. The action is entirely in the manual and in the halos, while the second-generation cars occupy a higher, newer band that is only beginning to depreciate.

Recent Audi R8 sales: a dated, sourced ledger

The numbers above rest on results like these. Each row pairs a price with the car, the venue, and the date, so the figure is checkable rather than asserted. The gearbox and generation are flagged so the separate markets stay separate, and non-USD results are converted at approximate sale-date rates.

Rows sourced to classic.com and Collecting Cars reflect that page's recorded figure as it appeared in search results rather than a primary lot page we reached directly, because classic.com and several auction pages return an access block to automated fetch. The Cars & Bids 2015 V10 Plus manual is listed as its recorded high bid, not a confirmed hammer. The two Bring a Trailer figures and the two Sotheby's Motorsport and duPont figures come from the pages cited.

How The Molly Report values an Audi R8

This page is a labeled Molly's estimate, and the distinction matters. Our Ferrari F40 value guide rests on a proprietary 47-car comp ledger; this R8 read is built from public auction results, the aggregate sale records at classic.com and The Classic Valuer, and the dated lots cited above. It is a market summary, not a proprietary verified band, and it is labeled that way on purpose.

The firewall is the same one we apply everywhere: facts are sourced and dated, opinion is labeled as opinion, and the separate markets are never blended into one number. The gated-manual cars, the halos, and the second-generation cars each get their own read, the same way we keep an F40 LM out of a road-car average. This is informational, it is not a professional appraisal, and it is not investment advice; values move with the market, and the figures here are dated and sourced so you can check them.

For the car in front of you, the cohort number is the start, not the answer. Pin the exact car from the VIN, confirm the gearbox and the service history, establish whether it is a genuine limited edition, and price that specific car on its own spec and file.

Audi R8 quick spec reference

The R8 was Audi's mid-engine halo, launched in 2007 in Europe and 2008 in the United States, built around an aluminum spaceframe and, at the top, a naturally aspirated 5.2 V10 shared with Lamborghini. It ran two generations before production ended in the first quarter of 2024.

Production and running-change details are per Wikipedia's Audi R8 entry; exact per-year manual counts are best confirmed against an Audi build record for a specific VIN, since the scarcest manual configurations are reported in the single digits per market.

FAQ

How much is an Audi R8 worth in 2026?

A good first-generation Audi R8 with the automated R-tronic gearbox is worth about $72,000 in 2026, with honest higher-mileage cars from the low $50,000s. Gated-manual first-generation cars run from roughly $80,000 to $130,000, and low-mileage V10 manuals reach $140,000 to past $200,000. Second-generation cars are a separate, dearer market.

Why is a manual Audi R8 worth so much more?

Audi offered the open-gate six-speed manual only on the first-generation R8 (2008 to 2015) and never again. That makes it one of the last naturally aspirated V10 supercars with three pedals, and the cars are scarce, some configurations in the single digits per market. The manual carries a large, durable premium over the automated R-tronic car, and it has re-rated upward while automated cars stayed cheaper.

Is the V8 or the V10 R8 more valuable?

Within the first generation, the 5.2 V10 trades above the 4.2 V8, but the gearbox matters more than the engine. A gated-manual V8 can trade above an automated V10, because the manual is the scarcer and more sought configuration. The V8 with the R-tronic box is the most attainable R8, from about $50,000.

How much is a second-generation Audi R8 worth?

The second-generation R8 (Type 4S, 2016 to 2023) is a separate, newer band, trading from about $120,000 for a good V10 to over $200,000 for a low-mileage V10 Performance. It was never offered with a manual, using a 7-speed S-tronic dual-clutch instead, so the gated-manual premium does not apply to these cars.

What is the most expensive Audi R8?

The dearest regular-production R8 is the final 2023 R8 GT RWD, 333 built, rear-wheel drive, with a classic.com benchmark of $258,458 and a recorded high of $291,500. Among first-generation cars, the gated-manual V10 Plus examples are the value leaders, with one reported to a $218,888 high bid on Cars & Bids in January 2026.

How many Audi R8s were made?

Audi built about 44,430 R8s in total between June 2006 and March 2024, across two generations and the 4.2 V8 and 5.2 V10 engines. The limited editions are far scarcer: 333 first-generation R8 GTs, 60 US R8 V10 Competitions, and 333 second-generation R8 GT RWDs.

Does the Audi R8 share its engine with a Lamborghini?

Yes. The R8's 5.2 V10 and much of its platform are shared with the Lamborghini Gallardo and, in second-generation form, the Huracán. The R8 is generally the more usable and, for years, the cheaper way into that naturally aspirated V10, which is a large part of its value case.

Are Audi R8 values going up?

The automated first-generation cars have largely stopped falling and hold in the $50,000s to low $90,000s. The gated-manual cars have gone up, re-rating from a used-market low around 2018 to 2020 back toward and past six figures as the naturally aspirated manual supercar became scarce. The second-generation cars are newer and only beginning to depreciate.

Is an Audi R8 a good investment?

The Molly Report does not give investment advice. As market fact, gated-manual first-generation R8s have appreciated while automated cars stayed flat to soft; values are sensitive to gearbox, generation, engine, mileage, and edition, any of which can move the same name by tens of thousands. Price the specific configuration, not the model name.

In summary, a good first-generation Audi R8 is worth about $72,000 in 2026 with the automated gearbox and from the low $50,000s for an honest higher-mileage car, but the gated six-speed manual is the lever that splits the market, running roughly $80,000 to $130,000 and past $200,000 for the scarcest low-mileage V10 cars. The second-generation Type 4S is a separate, dearer band to about $210,000, and the final 2023 R8 GT RWD sits alone near $250,000 to $291,500. One name, two generations, two gearboxes, and the whole skill is telling them apart, pinning the VIN, and pricing off the documented comps rather than a blended average.