general rant- of tuners, Audi Sport, Audi...

[Brett Dikeman]

At 10:52 PM +0200 9/13/02, Jeroen Bruintjes wrote:
>Don't know if someone posted this already, but it is too cool to
>miss:
>
>http://www.sls.wau.nl/fstolp/evenementen/BS-burningrubber/rubber.htm
>

<RANT ON>

Dahlback, a Sweedish tuner, did the same thing- only with a Sport
Quattro, no tire up against a wall, and pretty much all four wheels.
IMHO, it is truly sad that such a priceless and rare car is subjected
to that sort of thing.  There's enjoying a car(such as what Colin
does with his SportQ, taking it to qclub events) and then there's
just outright abuse...

In every video I can find of him on the net taking on other cars in
drag races(both kinds, legal and not so), he gets his rear end handed
to him with the Sport Q by just about everything.  Doesn't exactly
back up his reputation for supposedly being "the wildest" Audi tuner
around...or his eyes are bigger than his turbo, so to speak.

   The "RSR" and other obnoxious badges that seem to adorn the cars in
his portfolio don't earn many points from where I sit...but that
said, the I-5 20vt Golf is impressive in execution; his work does
seem to be top notch with regards to design and implementation.

   Although there's not much to be said about heavily borrowing from
Audi Sport's inventory to get the job done, if you have the means,
more power to you; not many people can even get Audi Sport to talk to
them, much less get an IMSA transmission :-)

I find it so amusing that Audi's idea of becoming a
high-performance-car oriented car company seems to revolve around:

-no support for racing unless you're Champion Motorsport or bigger

-take it as we give it to you, ie, no performance
modifications(remember, the new S4 is supposedly 4.2l based which
leaves little in the way of tuning possibilities except nitrous which
is hardly as safe or easy as a chip; the RS4 isn't being produced
anymore; Audi is getting really nasty about performance mods in the
turbo cars, etc.)

-no manual transmissions in the most interesting models(think about
it.  Audi simply doesn't offer the 4.2 with a stick in the US.  Who
says they'll start with the next generation S4?  RS6 = M5 killer?
Sorry boys, try again with three pedals in the footwell, not two.)

Well, there's your opinion piece :-)

B
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