Audi brand experience

Audi brand experience

2014年10月30日木曜日

6:47

'Vorsprung durch technick'. I'm not sure what that means, maybe it's the English equivalent of ' I love you in ' in German. Maybe not you, but automobiles cars.

I'm lucky enough to check my mailbox when Audi make sent me an invitation for the Audi brand experience event at Audi Ikebukro. It's only a half day event, but nevertheless, the tentative was full packed with presentation about the brand itself, safety driving instruction and test drive on the new model of RS5 and A6.

Though I tend to be a BMW enthusiast, I don't limit my option there as I love cars, beautiful looking car (only). And Audi seems to fit in the Boolean diagram, so this time I'm gonna explain a bit about Audi.

It all started with a person called August Horch. In 1899, 13 years after the birth of combustion engine,he established an automobile company called Horch. In 1909, he then made another car company, specializing in luxury vehicle. He can't use the name Horch again, so he choose to use latin synonym of the word horch(which mean listen in germany), which is 'audi'. Now you know.

The 4 rings on the grille actually has its own underlying meaning. Horch began persuade other company to join and form a union. DKW, auto bike specialist, and Wanderer which happen to start its business as a bicycle repair shop join forces and formed a new company called Auto Union. Fast forward, the name audi replaces Auto union,and became the well known auto manufacturer today. Since 1966 Audi was owned by Volkswagen Group, so there are some similarities you would find with volkswagen in terms of technology.

In 1983, audi founded a whole new subsidiary, quattro GmbH. The name quattro itself actually came from the  It's the equivalent of TRD of Toyota and Nismo of Nissan, specializing in high performance luxury vehicle, with its core product include Audi RS4, RS6 and R8, and this one too is part of volkswagen group.

While other auto maker have their own complex and hard way of representing their model line-up, Audi has a way much more simpler method. Most of their models(excluding TT, and Q) came with alphabet, followed by numbers.

The pyramid represents roughly the ratio volume of the model produced. Any model that starts with A,S or RS is the core model, with the high end RS model is a relatively low production, high performance car. Anything outside the pyramid would be the limited production vehicle, with R8 as the flagship model in terms of performance, TT as its little brother, and Q as the SUV. Bear in mind that the line and area colored orange is actually made by quattro, in other words the subsidiary produce only high performance version. See? I told you its easy to understand Audi's lineup.

Though different in terms of performance, all recent Audi models share the same DNA in terms of looks and configuration.  Here I have these photo of Audi RS5 cabriolet.

Even without the 4 rings, Its easy to recognize that its made by Audi. What's really stand out in this model is the shape of the headlight. That's just looks so muscular, angry and serious at the same time, you wouldn't even dare to scratch the car even a tiny bit. And of course, the signature reverse trapezoid grille, which just add up perfectly with the chrome coated 4 circles.

Yes, I'm really attracted to how the car looks either in exterior and interior. But somehow , the looks doesn't appeal too much for me to consider buying one(if I have the right amount of cash).  The looks just seems to be too formal, for me its resemble much of the corporate looks. Try drive this one at a drive-through,  and someone will give you a glare like ' he should have enough money to go to a 5-star restaurant'. Maybe after I'll be a CEO of a company, then I'll consider buying one.

There's so much thing I wanna write about Audi's tech, especially quattro, e-tron and TFSI cylinder on demand. But lets just keep it simple here, as I'll post another more detailed article next time.