Take it from me, when a Nevada state trooper approaches the car you have just been driving at an enthusiastic speed across his wilderness, it is time to be scared. And when the sun glances off his mirror shades and dazzlingly white teeth as his hand reaches into his holster, you’ll start scanning the horizon for any possible escape routes across the Mojave Desert.

I have a colleague who was recently detained for a speeding offence in the Land of the Free, an incident that, compared to my own enthusiastic driving, felt more like being told off for walking on the cracks in the pavement.

The conversation went: ‘Licence’. Pause. ‘Registration’. Pause. ‘Passport’. Pause. ‘That is the most goddam beautiful car I have ever seen, sir. It would be a shame to find it on its roof. Do we understand each other? Good. Have a nice day.’ Or words to that effect. It was rather a long time ago and, under the circumstances, I took the view that getting out my Dictaphone to record the conversation was unlikely to improve matters much.

It is, of course, entirely possible he didn’t know exactly how fast we’d been going a couple of minutes earlier and I wasn’t about to ask. But of all the incredible things the then new Audi R8 did the day I drove it from Las Vegas to Death Valley, defusing a tense encounter with the Nevada Highway Patrol was by far the most memorable. So memorable, indeed, that, 17 years later, it remains my single most vivid R8-related experience.

And if that all seems a long time ago, which it undoubtedly does, it’s about to become even more so. Because as I type and you read the R8 is already a car to be referred to in the past tense. Production has stopped and if it ever starts again, the car wearing the badge will, of course, be electric. But don’t hold your breath: I drove an electric Audi R8 in 2009, which was scheduled to go on sale in 2011 (see accompanying sidebar). Over a dozen years later, save fewer than 100 twin-motor, 456bhp R8 e-trons popping up in 2015, we’re still waiting, the problem of how to make a truly engaging two-seat sports cars powered by the same fuel that chills your milk had clearly proven just as difficult for Audi as it had for everyone else.

One of the most astonishing aspects of the R8 over its lifetime is that despite there being just two generations, the number of variants and special editions is utterly bewildering. If you have no interest in these, feel free to skip ahead.

There was the original – the grey car seen here, which went into production in 2006 to be joined by a V10-powered big sister in 2009. Both cars soon became available in ‘Spyder’ configuration, the V10 in 2010, the V8 in 2011. The first limited edition R8 GT was introduced in 2011 with a production run of 333, plus the same number of Spyders.

The car was facelifted in 2012 and a coupé-only R8 V10 Plus introduced. But of course, none of these include the seriously esoteric R8s like the UK-only ‘Limited Edition’ (100 as you’re asking), the ‘Exclusive Selection’ Editions, the LMX or run out ‘R8 Competition’ which was nothing of the sort. Nor have I mentioned the concepts like the aforementioned e-tron or the wonderfully bonkers 6-litre, V12 twin-turbo diesel ‘V12 TDI Concept’. I’ll spare you all the racing versions because that’s just the first version.

The second-generation car was distinguished most by the dropping of both manual gears and the V8 engine and the adoption of a proper dual-clutch gearbox in place of the clunky robotised manual used by all two-pedal R8s to date. It launched in 2015 as both a coupé and Spyder with the really big news coming two years later when the R8 RWS was announced, a limited edition of 999 R8s with, heaven be praised, rear-wheel drive for the very first time. We all loved it, said Audi would be mad not to put it into full time production while Audi insisted it was a one-time only gig.

Two years later the standard production rear-drive R8 RWD went on sale. Then there were V10 Plus and LMS versions before it was facelifted in 2019. This brought the ‘Performance’ models with the full fat 611bhp V10 on board (unless it was a rear-driver when it was ‘only’ 562bhp) and finally the ultimate combination of max power and rear drive, the R8 GT seen here. Once again I’ll spare you the GT2, GT3 and GT4 race versions and pause only to titter slightly at specials with names like ‘Decennium’, ‘Panther’ and, my favourite, the one off ‘Star of Lucis.’

The strange thing, I guess, is how few of them I actually really rated. It was as if Audi had with the very first created something even more special than it had anticipated, a uniquely harmonious conjoining of many and various components to create a car that was, without exaggeration, the closest anyone had ever come to knocking the Porsche 911 off its perch.

I remember standing on a Welsh hillside with my fellow Ti contributor Steve Sutcliffe with one such car discussing the forthcoming V10. ‘It’ll be stupidly fast,’ my long time friend and colleague opined, ‘but hard to see how it could actually be better than this.’ He was, of course, completely on the money. I went on the launch of the V10, punted it around the track Audi had kindly provided as part of the programme, scared myself, went home and doubtless wrote some choice about less being more. I remember too a group test with the second-generation car, an Aston Martin Vantage, a 911 Turbo and McLaren 570S. The Audi got trounced.

But then the RWS came along and I still find it hard to fathom just how the deletion of a couple of driveshafts could so bring a car alive. Yes, it was more predictable on and over the limit and 50kg lighter, but that’s hardly the point. It was better everywhere. That aloofness by which time I so associated the car, was gone. It no longer felt the need to demonstrate what it could do, it wanted you to join in too. The steering came alive and, for myself, I cared not one whit that it came only with the puniest tune of the V10: for me 533bhp was more than enough to be getting along with.

So there they stand and I want to drive the old one first. It’s been years but it might as well have been yesterday. I know instantly and exactly how it works. The V8 fires with a bark, the gearlever slices beautifully in the first of its six open-gate slots and at once we’re rolling.

I think the single greatest attribute of this car, beyond even that gorgeous, howling engine, unimprovable gearshift and the way it just flows along the length of any given road is how uncomplicated it is. I’m not talking about knobs and buttons here, but its character. You know this car almost from the moment you’ve set off, and while that could be a very boring trait in a lesser car, when you’re aboard something that simply reeks of the clarity of thought and engineering excellence that went into it, it just means you enjoy it more, more of the time.

Truly this car has one of the world’s great powertrains and the fact that there are hatchbacks today that will meet or beat its output is an irrelevance. Not once during our day together did I wish for more than the 414bhp on offer. And the chassis? Well I already knew how good that was: in the 35 years Autocar magazine has been holding an annual event to discover the identity of Britain’s best drivers’ car – known internally as ‘Handling Day’ because that’s what it’s all about – just once has it been won by an Audi, and you don’t need me to tell you which one.

I’ll say now that in this test, we’re not exactly comparing like with like, even taking the age gap into account. The old car is as basic as can be, the 2022 R8 GT, the very last R8 variant, nothing less than the ultimate street-legal R8. It combines not only the most powerful engine with rear-drive, but also with KW coilover suspension, adjustable suspension geometry (with spanners), a lowered ride height, standard ceramics (which with carbon buckets and a carbon front anti-roll bar drop weight by 20kg), and an aero pack claimed to give 300kg of downforce (check out the winglets on the front and swan neck rear wing mountings). Like the first-generation GT, just 333 were made for worldwide sale, a mere 15 coming to the UK of which the car you’re looking at is the final one.

Unlike its sire, it tries quite hard to make you not want to like it. Sink down into that unyielding seat, push it back as far as it will go and my hands are still too close to the wheel. No problem: I’m sitting far too upright as it is, so I’ll just recline the seat. Except you can’t. The carbon buckets slide fore and aft and that’s it. The backrest is fixed. T The V10 starts with a sharp crack of intent, startling every pigeon in the car park into flight. You growl off down the road, being kicked left and right by clearly uncompromising suspension settings.

But actually? The magic that was first visited upon the second-generation R8 when they denuded the front wheels of their driveshafts remains. That feel is still there. Oh how I wish it had three pedals, but that was never going to happen and the dual-clutch transmission is still hugely effective and engaging. The engine too: the V10 has always been a pretty special unit, but never more so in an Audi than in its ultimate spec powering the lightest R8 of its generation. Despite the weight of that gearbox, the extra cylinders and cubic capacity, the fact it’s a physically bigger car, with bigger wheels and tyres, beefier suspension, aero add ons, better equipment and doubtless more unseen safety stuff, it’s still just 85kg heavier than the very first R8, which when you think of the BMWs that pile on hundreds of kilos just moving from one generation to the next, I think is a hell of an achievement.

We travelled exclusively on public roads which limited how far and how often you could extend the V10, but where once that motor had been pretty much the car’s only really cool trick, now it’s merely a highlight, the crowning joy of a fabulously fast yet always reassuring, always involving, confidence-inspiring supercar.

I came to this test knowing exactly what I’d think of the old car and then not being surprised at all. It’s a wonder: the best Audi of its or any other era. But the GT is not far behind. It suffers mainly because the seats, ride and driving position make it something of a toy, however serious, while the original is damn near as usable as a 911, lack of rear seats notwithstanding. And yes, were it me looking for a second-generation R8, I’d spend a small fraction of what the GT is currently worth and get a lovely standard RWD which would be far easier to live with and, I suspect, negligibly less fun to drive.

Even so, the GT is a fitting farewell to a breed of car that, while it had its fair shares of ups and down, saved almost the best ’til last. And there are few cars indeed that manage that. It will go down as not just one of the great R8s, but one of the best Audis of all. But the original? That’s one of the best cars, period. And that, in a nutshell, is the difference.

They closed the highway that day, some 15 years ago, when I drove the electric R8. Which was nice of them. With all the trucks, pickups and utes stacked up behind the police officers positioned at either end of a several mile stretch, I was able to fling it up and down the Malibu coastline untroubled by anything other than the nagging doubt that something other than the traffic was missing.

It didn’t take much to figure out what. I was sitting in a supercar, a mid-engined coupé that could hit 60mph from rest in under 5sec and yet even under full acceleration, made barely a sound. There were no gears to flick through, either manual or automatic, no rev-counter needle soaring towards the red paint, no engine to hear. It was performance stripped to its barest bones. It could almost have been a conveyor belt.

Even back then I’d had the same sense of sensory deprivation when gunning an inaudible Tesla Roadster up the Goodwood hill, but that was somehow different – the car an esoteric sideshow. This was an Audi: the main event. If it was the future for fast cars, was it even a future worth having?

Despite appearances, there was no actual R8 in this car at all. It had a carbon structure, a plastic body and instead of one or even two electric motors, it had four, one located in each of its wheels to provide 313bhp, good enough to take the car to a limited top speed of 125mph. They were fed by a 42kWh battery pack offering a range, at least in theory, of 150 miles. Today’s RS e-tron GT (the closest EV to an R8 Audi makes) has a battery of over 100kWh, can hit 62mph in 3sec flat and has approximately double the range, though such apparent progress needs also to be seen in light of the fact it weighs at least half a tonne more.

But though I admired the R8 e-tron and at the time regarded it as a fascinating technical accomplishment, as a thing to drive, to engage me as the petrol engined R8 already had, it left me quite cold. And for all electric cars have achieved in the interim, that is one crucial factor that has barely changed.

Am I surprised, then, that the oft-mooted full-time production version of the R8 e-tron never actually showed up? Not in the slightest. And I expect the market will be some years more mature even than it is now before Audi top brass attempt anything quite that bold. And I cannot say I blame them.