SEPARATED AT BIRTH

Audi Sport is pioneering innovative production processes that let it build very different cars side by side. Rachel Burgess finds out more

-  Rachel Burgess

What do the Audi R8 and Audi E-tron GT have in common? Not much. Different powertrain, different chassis, different bodystyle. Not a single part is shared. And yet there's one major commonality, as you will probably have guessed by the image here: they are both built on the same production line at Audi Sport's Böllinger Höfe plant in Neckarsulm, Germany.

It's a feat of manufacturing that's not to be underestimated: it's the only example across the entire Volkswagen Group where two models with no commonalities are built on the same line.

It's an unusual scenario. The R8 is predominantly hand-made and V10-powered, while the E-tron GT is fully electric and reflects a new world of automation and digitalisation. So why produce them together?

Böllinger Höfe was opened in 2014 and became home to the first and then the second-generation R8, and it had always been planned as a flexible small-scale plant, explains production director Wolfgang Schanz: "It was a good chance for us to show the potential, flexible structure of this production site. Because the R8 volume was quite low, we had capacity."

Still, it's some shift: before the E-tron GT came along last year, the site was hand-making 10 R8s a day. The total number of cars is now around 60, when you factor in the E-tron GTs made on the highly automated line. 

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