Audi gets all over 'Iron Man'

Is this the real Iron Man movie?

(Credit: Paramount Pictures Corporation)

Audi has recently made big media pushes with a luxury forum at the Super Bowl and rides for celebrities at the Oscars, and now the company touts its involvement with the upcoming superhero movie Iron Man. Audi got director Jon Favreau to include the Audi R8 as Tony Stark's personal car in the movie, citing it as an appropriate car for the most technically knowledgeable superhero. As luck would have it, we have an Audi R8 in our garage for review this week, so of course we had to make our own duplicate of a still from the movie.

Or is it this one?

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

Audi goes a little overboard in comparing the R8 with Iron Man, suggesting that the eye slits in the Iron Man helmet resemble the LED headlights on the R8, that Tony Stark's artificial heart is a parallel for the glass-covered engine on the R8, and that the R8's high-strength space frame is a match for Iron Man's armor. Having driven the R8, we're pretty sure it couldn't stop bullets, and we couldn't find a button to fire blasters. However, we do appreciate that the Audi R8 isn't fictional. Audi also got its S5 in the movie as the personal car for Tony Stark's assistant, Pepper Potts.

Expect to see advertisements featuring Iron Man and the Audi R8 over the next month, leading up to the movie's May 2 release. There is also a site at www.audi.com/ironman.