Hi fellas,
Name's Norm, and I'm one of those boys in an adult body.
Came across your forum quite by accident when googling "R8 and "Birdsville". Spooky thing is, Orange is my home town; and I spent (more accurately mis-spent) my youth there when FEs were near new. I actually owned one.
Ah, the good ol' days.
So why did we drive an R8 to Birdsville? Because the editor of Top Gear Australia wanted a story, and the brief was to take the car places it would never be expected to be seen. His original request was to take it across a desert, but that would have been just too difficult. We got to Birdsville via Hilston, Mossgeil, Ivanhoe, Willcania, White Cliffs, Tibooburra, Warri Gate, the oilfield roads East of Innamincka, and Haddon Corner. Read about it in the November issue.
Yes, it is a shame to treat a super car like this, but that's the nature of the mag; irreverence. Fortunately, the R8 won't be sold to some poor unsuspecting sod, but will probably go back to engineering to be pulled apart.
And yes, we did drive it veeerrry slowly in the dirt; being mindfull of the 30% profile tyres. We holed one about 200 Ks out of Birdsville.
Yes, it was trucked out of Birdsville, but only to the bitumen; because we hoisted it at the servo and thought we had put enough rock dings underneath. We were worried about holing the cast alloy sump.
We never wound it up on the blacktop. Well, it might have exceeded the speed limit a little a few times while overtaking.
It's a fabulous car (not quite 600 hp; about 310 Kw) and we did treat it as kindly as possible considering the conditions. I doubt that a Lambo, or even a Ferrari would have made that trip and still have no rattles.
For your interest, here's a pic on that infamous sand ridge about 30 kilometres out of town.
Nice to talk to you. Enjoy your FEs and FCs (I know you do).
