[s-cars] New Q7

[Lee]

Teddy,

Thanks, yes I was in Palo Alto yesterday. Actually was in Sausalito 
on Saturday, looks like a wonderful place to watch a bike race.

The race was great...it was awesome seeing nothing but people and 
bikes on University Drive in downtown Palo Alto. Spend some time in 
the VIP tent overlooking the finish...that was pretty cool. Go CSC! :)

Driving down the PCH today, I saw signs for the bike race later later 
this week. Holy shit, I had a 2 hour white knuckle drive in the Q7, 
can't freakin imagine a pro bike peloton on that road.

Stayed in Monterey yesterday, stopped by Laguna Seca today. The 
Shelby Club was out playing. They let us into the paddocks...we 
wandered around for a while, all sorts of interesting machinery in 
attendance (very few Mustangs, in fact). An Audi TT cabrio, a coupla 
Porsches, a late model Ferrari (430?) in full race kit.

We then took the Q7 to the top of the hill, scared my wife and kids a 
bit at an approach that gave us only sky (facing the back turn up the hill).

The Q7 is really growing on me...it is a wonderful platform, very 
comfortable and well laid out. I really did not enjoy the drive down 
the PCH, but was very happy to be in an Audi.

Only two issues with the Q7 -- the first is that it is a little more 
complicated than I'd like. Sure, I could figure it out, but I'm 
looking for a car for my wife, not me, and she'd never get the radio 
to change stations.

Second, side and rearward visibility is not up to typical Audi 
standards. Much better than most other vehicles of this (or smaller) 
size, but there were a couple of times that a second look found a car 
that was in my blind spot. Really scary to think that people drive 
these without knowing they need to take the second look!

The rear seats are okay, but a bit small. My 15 YO daughter enjoyed 
riding in the back, but it takes a little doing to get in/out, not at 
all like a minivan. Fine for occasional seating....

The Hertz rental is a special config -- no xenons, vinyl seats, 3.6L 
engine, Sat radio, no adjustable suspension, no nav, etc. It does 
have the wonderful full length (dual) skylights. Suspension is not 
quite taut enough for the highway, and a bit too taut for any real 
offroading (although the adjustable suspension might be better offroad.)

Quite interesting how much attention this truck gets. It does turn 
quite a lot of heads, even in affluent car-crazy neighborhoods, and 
the one I'm driving is a simple white one without 22" chrome wheels.

Lee

At 01:02 PM 2/18/2008, Theodore Chen wrote:
>lee, my reply to your email address bounced.
>
>i was at the tour of california prologue yesterday.  were you 
>there?  i haven't seen this many people on palm drive since 
>gorbachev came to stanford in '89 , during my junior year.
>
>i wanted to make sure you know that monday's stage is sausalito to 
>santa rosa, not palo alto.  just in case you show up in palo alto 
>and wonder where everybody is.  :)
>
>i'm going to try to catch the wednesday stage in san jose.  my wife 
>is off that day, so i may take a few hours off to go watch.
>
>is that Q7 a 4.2 or 3.6?  my brother was thinking about getting 
>one.  how does the third row look?  is it usable?
>
>-teddy

Lee Levitt
'01 A4 1.8t quattro avant
''99 A6 quattro avant
'97 A6 quattro avant
'96 A6 quattro avant