The seller of today’s Audi R8 claims to be in no hurry to sell, stating that they are “testing the waters” with the ad. We’ll just have to see if its passes our test.

One of the great drivers of the post-WWII economic boom was mass consumerism. That engendered broader choices in product offerings as businesses flexed to fill every little niche in the market. Naturally, the auto industry jumped on this bandwagon, expanding both model lines and body styles, again in an attempt to ensure every consumer could find exactly what they wanted.

One result of this expansion was the advent of the luxury pickup truck, which was once an incongruous idea but eventually became a mainstream option. The we looked at yesterday was one of the early attempts to make bank off this market. By today’s standards, it’s not exactly what you might consider feature-rich, but when new, it was just shy of Lincoln levels of luxury. The truck’s seller attempted to also get Lincoln levels of cash for their fancy-pants pickup, asking a substantial $14,999 for the admittedly low-mileage truck. Regardless of the airs it attempted to put on, few of you were having any of that. In the end, that resulted in a 88 percent No Dice loss to start our week.

Yesterday’s Ford attempted to bridge the gap between work and after-hours activities, and it did so fairly successfully when taken as a representative of its era. Today’s offers modern-day luxury accouterments. However, instead of applying those to a work environment, it slathers them liberally on the race-bred all-alloy space frame of a Lamborghini Gallardo.

In fact, if you were to metaphorically lift up this R8’s skirt you’d find a lot of Gallardo hiding underneath. That’s not all that far off the farm for Audi since the Gallardo was developed with Audi input, Audi parts, and Audi sensibilities. Yes, the Gallardo is still crazy fun to drive, and crazy expensive to keep driving, but at least you can expect the A/C to provide better than marginal effort. That hasn’t always been the case with Lamborghini’s outside-sourced bits and pieces.

The R8 on the other hand is a little more Audi all around, and that makes it more livable day to day. This one, in white with a black sideblade over a charcoal interior still looks pretty audacious, almost 13 years and 71,000 miles since new. The 32-valve 4.2L V8 living under the glass hatch at the rear presents one face during normal driving, and another, angrier face when you give it the beans. That mill utilizes Volkswagen Auto Group’s stratified injection (FSI) and dry sump lubrication to keep it low but not slow. As spec’d it produces a healthy 414 horsepower and 317 lb-ft of torque. In this car’s case, that’s been mated to a six-speed gated manual gearbox and Audi’s iconic Quattro full-time AWD system.

Wrapped around all that is a unit-body constructed out of aluminum and carbon fiber to keep the weight down, and at just 3583 pounds, the V8 coupe is appreciably slim. Put all together, and depending on your skill level with the gated shifter, this R8 should be able to hit sixty from a standstill in a couple of ticks over four seconds. On the downside, its combined mileage is 16 mpg and that’s drinking premium fuel. Glug, glug.

While seemingly in need of light detailing, the car overall looks to be in excellent condition with no issues apparent in either the bodywork or the leather/Alcantara interior.

On the maintenance side, the car’s clutch and cam-cover gaskets are said to have been recently replaced, both pretty major tasks. As to looks, sound, and stance, there’s an updated cat-back exhaust, aftermarket wheels wrapped in fairly fresh meats, and the whole thing is held up via a coilover suspension. The title is clean and the car is said to “need nothing.”

According to the seller, the ad is a toe in the water to determine interest as they are considering upgrading to a Gallardo or a Ferrari. We’ll have to see if the $81,000 asking price they’ve set will turn out to be a snapping turtle just below the surface of that water.

What do you say; is that a deal for a car of such poise and purpose? Or, at that much, will this water-testing seller turn out to be all wet?

You decide!

Los Angeles, California, , or go if the ad disappears.

H/T to RevUnlimiter for the hookup!

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