Nobody saw this coming — Audi's fastest car ever runs on a V8, not a battery
The Nuvolari roared up the Goodwood hillclimb with nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen at the wheel, hitting 100 km/h in 2.6 seconds — and Audi says only 499 people will ever own one.
Nobody saw this coming. While Audi spent years promising an all-electric future, it just sent a 1,001-horsepower, V8-powered monster up the Goodwood hillclimb — the new Nuvolari supercar. The pre-production prototype tackled the famous 1.86-kilometer course with nine-time “24 Hours of Le Mans” winner Tom Kristensen behind the wheel. The festival runs in the UK from July 9 to 12, 2026.
Under the hood sits a high-performance hybrid powertrain rated at 1,001 hp. That's not just a headline number: according to Audi's preliminary figures, the car sprints to 100 km/h in 2.6 seconds, to 200 km/h in 6.8 seconds, and tops out beyond 350 km/h. Once production starts, the Nuvolari is set to become the most powerful and fastest series-production car in the brand's history. A bold claim — but the numbers back it up.
The supercar gets quattro all-wheel drive, active aerodynamics, carbon-fiber body panels, and energy management tech pulled straight from motorsport. Production is strictly capped at 499 units. European order books open in the fourth quarter of 2026, with first deliveries scheduled for the first half of 2027. Pricing hasn't been announced yet.
The historic side of the program belonged to the Auto Union Lucca, a faithful recreation built from archival photos and documents of a 1930s speed-record machine. Back in 1935, the original car averaged 320.267 km/h over a flying mile and hit 326.975 km/h on a separate stretch. At Goodwood, the replica made its first-ever dynamic public appearance — nearly a century after setting that record.
Audi Japan recently unveiled a one-off Q5 art car based on the new crossover.