The 1984 Audi 5000 Junkyard Find reminded us about the nightmare faced by Audi after 60 Minutes framed the 5000 as a an unintended accelerator in 1986. Audi sales took a real beating in the late 1980s, but some 5000s (renamed the 200 in an attempt to banish the stigma of a car whose greatest sin was the proximity of the brake pedal to the gas pedal) were bought in 1989. Here’s an optioned-up example that I found in the same Denver junkyard as the ’84. (Read More…)

The Audi “Unintended Acceleration” debacle of 1986, which whacked American Audi sales by about 75% within a few years, makes the 1982-86 Audi 5000 an historically significant Junkyard Find. The 60 Minutes piece about the 5000’s allegedly malevolent behavior turned the car’s image from masterpiece of aerodynamic science to bloody-clawed multiple murderer, with predictable effects on resale value for existing cars. This means that the 5000 of the Unintended Acceleration era that managed to stay on the good side of The Crusher until 2012 is a survivor of astonishing tenacity. (Read More…)

After I went to California and induced some dude at Toyota to loan me a Hot Lava Orange Scion FR-S earlier in the month, I figured I’d see if Audi’s PR types had forgotten how I compared the R8 to my hooptiefied ’92 Civic. Sure enough, Audi’s institutional memory proved to have some threadbare spots, and so I was able to arrange for the use of an Audi A7 for my trip to California for the Vodden the Hell Are We Doing 24 Hours of LeMons at Thunderhill Raceway. That meant a lot of rural highway driving, a lot of loading of race equipment into the cargo area, and exactly zero pushing-the-edge-of-the-performance-envelope 11/10ths-tyle driving. We’ll follow up Mr. Karesh’s impressions of the A7 from last year with a few of my own. (Read More…)

The Audi S3 promises 300 horsepower and 280 lb-ft of torque from its 2.0L turbocharged four-cylinder engine. Err, wait a second. That’s not the hot hatch you are looking for. The real pictures are below. You can tell it’s the real thing because of the LED headlights. That’s what makes it premium, dontchaknow?

Are you longing to drive something on the MQB platform but too insecure to drive a Volkswagen Golf? Have we got something for you!

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Because I have some friends who race a Quantum Syncro, I’ve been keeping my eyes open for junkyard parts sources. After several years (including two of them in a state that has more weird four-wheel-drive vehicles than any other), I’ve finally found one! (Read More…)

Opel may be in the crapper, but GM’s British arm, Vauxhall (which is intertwined with Opel) is happy to tout their new convertible, dubbed the Cascada.

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“I am satisfied that you were the leader of the group.

“You have an appalling record. This was an atrocious piece of dangerous driving.

“You drove through suburban streets of Wolverhampton at speeds which meant the police car could not keep up.

“You were driving on the wrong side of the road.

“You then got on the motorway and there was a moment in that pursuit that your intention was to outrun the police helicopter.”

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A couple of months ago, Aaron Robinson of Car & Driver wrote an expansive article about Scion.

This quote pretty much summarized his view on the brand.

“I have no doubt that Scion will eventually go the way of Plymouth.”

I’m sure he wasn’t implying that cheap Scions will someday morph their way into becoming Toyota equivalents that offer fake wood trim exterior panels and trombone case red interiors. As a long-time automotive writer and columnist, he was simply reading the proverbial writing on Scion’s firewall that has been ever deeper ingrained into their product line.

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Looking at this picture, carefully digitally massaged by my brother, it’s a bit hard to recall why I didn’t dig the 991. What a rich, full colour, shimmering and gleaming like the dowry bangles of an upper-caste Indian bride; love among the marigolds.

Trust me, in person this thing looked like a flicked booger. Put it another way: if the canary turns this colour, get the hell out of the mineshaft. But then, that’s just my opinion – and it sets me to wondering. As we writers are wont to praise or condemn based on the emotional intangibles of a car, how much of the review was due to the hue? (Read More…)

Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that the Audi TT is based on the VW Golf, which can be had for under $18,000. And it can seem silly when people buy an econobox then pour multiples of the purchase price into mods. When Audi does the same to create the $57,725 TT RS, how can we take the end result seriously?

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Americans are smart people. Avoid the word “wagon” in favor of “Avant,” and they still see a wagon. And don’t buy it. So for 2013 there are no more Avants for us. Instead, the “allroad” is back. Audi promises that it’s more than just a fancy name.

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By 2015, Audi wanted to overtake BMW and become the world’s largest maker of premium cars. These plans have been postponed. Not until 2018, but until 2020. The road ”is getting bumpier,” Audi CEO Rupert Stadler told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and said that world domination now will happen “by 2020 at the latest. It is not about overtaking BMW tomorrow or the day after, but to seize and secure the top position.” (Read More…)

From London’s Telegraph to Fox News, from Autoblog to Autoguide, gullible media predicted impending doom for foreign carmakers in China. Last February, it was announced that the Chinese government will henceforth only buy Chinese cars. This was seen as a blow especially to Audi. China’s Global Times calls an Audi A6 “Chinese officialdom’s vehicle of choice,” and it was predicted that the officialdom will henceforth have to make do with Roewes and Geelys. Why am I reminded of that story?

Audi’s sales in China are up 37.8 percent for the first six months of the year. (Read More…)