Audi is presenting a new middle class, the new Middle class Ingolstadt and nobody notices it. At first glance, an Audi. A4, right? Oh wait, a new kink in the headlight. And a - what was it called? Exactly, a radiator grille in XXL format, now with the corners bent at the top. Audi has a name for it. Unimportant. Because the grille is not important. When luminaire design and grille shapes fill the press release, then you have to worry.
The Ingolstadt bankruptcy declaration: Or, the new Audi A4
The company car driver's favorite, it's finally new for the 2015 IAA. It is rumored that the top developer was a year late, as if the Ingolstadt-based men were picking their noses behind his back. So “detention” was ordered and the market launch was postponed. Now you couldn't get any longer. The Stuttgart C-Class and the Dreier from Munich graze the field of fleet customers without consideration, even the new Passat trumps mightily. So - curtain up for the flagship of the Ingolstadt fleet, the Audi men’s dairy cow.
When progress takes place without you
Vorsprung durch Technik was once the claim. Standstill through discouragement and lack of ideas seems to be the new watchword in Ingolstadt. The “new” A4 (B9) shines with: Nothing. Although - if you read the press kits, the greatest joy in innovation in Ingolstadt no longer seems to be with the engineers, but with the PR department. Well - you can do it like that, but then the result is crap!
Who remembers the first generation TDI? An quattro, a Procon-Ten, a five-cylinder, aluminum space frame, the spirit of the brilliant technician? Apparently nobody at Audi anymore.
Laser light? Hybrid? Plug-in or electrical? New sports engines? Active chassis, air suspension? 4 wheel steering? Partial autonomy when driving? Anything? Is there anything about the new Audi AXNUMX that the competitor didn't bring to the market a year ago? No -
- and thus the formerly so important brand claim ends: a head start through technology. Here - now - today, with the Audi B9, the claim to be a technology leader, a company with innovative strength, is playful. Out. The game is over.
The new Audi A4 is conserved boredom, optically. And conserved downtime on a technical level. A bankruptcy declaration by designers and technicians.
Too bad.
