Rant against AoA

[ccohen5 at compuserve.com]

I read the rant about how hard it was to get a sport configured A6 
2.8.

I asked the factory this question and here was the answer, in 
summary:

US has regs peculiar to the US only, so cars that come here must 
be sold here. So what cars will dealers risk capital to hold? Auto 
luxo barges that compete with others, thats what!

In addition, once the manual transmission finds its way into a 
buyer6s hands, the market for resale is very low - ie BIG 
depreciation. This factor affects Average Depreciation for the 
model and bingo: bad reputation.

So I asked why do dealers not explore demand amongst enthusiasts 
-as (so I asserted) there are just tons of Q list buyers for the 
A6 2.8 manual we heard about here. Answer:  WhaddaUmean? Dealers 
market used cars? Apparently Us dealers are not representative of 
the an "interest" group. As soon as their return on capital 
invested in Audi inventory, parts, engineering and training, drops 
below the average level of their price segment, they holler at 
Audi and threaten to walk, sell more Mercs or Rovers or something. 
This is not a phenomenon in Europe where each dealer sells fewer 
cars and is subsidized (in effect) by the company car syndrome 
where employers or lease companies pay the bulk of the cost.

Their were lots more details which will not interest enthusiasts, 
so suffice to say, Audi like others, has a problem converting 
their customer context from 100/200 perspective owners to BMW M3 
perspectives. So much so that dealers will not risk capital. But 
the good news is this is changing thanks to the S4 and A6/2.7. We 
may see the S6 and S8, but this is not certain because of the 
recession. We will NOT see the RS4, but there are at least 2 on 
their way here now.

Colin