My S4tt IS slow...and A64.2

[Fisher, Scott]

Derek Daily writes:

> But...for now I'm driving around an A6 V8 loaner. 
> Wow.  This thing impresses me even more every day. 

That reminds me of another observation I had when we had the loaner A4 2.8
auto while our 100csq was having the recall done.

I remembered when I had my neat new 1980 4000, back in about 1981 or so, and
took it in for some scheduled maintenance at my local Audi dealer.  They
kindly drove me back to work in a 5000 -- not a turbo, just the standard
5000 of the day.

It felt faster, smoother, bigger, better, more solid, more *everything* than
my much-loved 4000 did.

Now, this was hard for me to accept at the time.  I've always believed that
The Perfect Car was the Lotus/Caterham Seven; if you had to have a car with
a back seat and a roof, a Morris Mini Cooper 1275 S would be just about
right.  And when I was in my British Roadster phase, I never enjoyed my MGB
as much as I liked the Midget that I'd started out with; the B felt so much
bigger and just didn't have the edge that the Midget had.  I've always
preferred little cars with the sharp steering response that low overall
weight and short wheelbase combine to offer, and as a result I never
bothered to pay attention to the bigger cars in anybody's product line, not
till my three kids started to get too big to fit in the kinds of cars I
liked.  But for years I resisted big cars because I knew, just knew, they
were bulky, ungainly, wallowy, sluggish in cornering, and -- even if some of
them had big motors that made them nice on the highway -- just plain no fun
to drive on a winding road.

Then I drove our '93 100csq over Stage Road between San Gregorio and
Pescadero and was seriously depressed that a big, white four-door sedan with
an automatic could be more fun to drive on my favorite sports-car road than
my favorite sports car.

And the relationship between our 100csq and the A4 loaner is similar to the
relationship between the 4000 and 5000 some 20 years ago.  And, it appears,
Derek is noticing something similar about the A6 and his S4tt.

So -- I don't know what it is, whether this is something unique to Audi, or
whether BMW and Mercedes do the same thing.

But with Audis, at any rate, the bigger cars aren't just built for comfort.
They have always, since the early 80s anyway, offered the driver something
more than a good freeway ride and a little more bulk.  They've offered more
power, more response, more of all the things people like me prefer about
little cars, but in a package that, as Derek says, any company director can
feel comfortable riding in.  

Amazing.  I may have to go shopping for a V8 some day if this keeps up...

--Scott Fisher
  Tualatin, Oregon