Interesting this thread came about when it did. I just was just cross shopping the i8 and the R8 recently. Let me first say that I've been a BMW fan for a long time. I seriously looked at the i8. It looks absolutely fantastic, but I feel like it just doesn't quite have the performance to back up the looks. So I went with a 1st gen R8 V10 instead. Perhaps in a few years when BMW comes up with a higher performance version of the i8, I will be back