[urq] The revolt is revolting?

[urq]

... somewhat reasonable arguments ... not clear to me that the root cause of
my disgust is the parts situation or the fact that the cars were so
lackluster from the get go ... 

The thing that bugs me the most is the fact that all Audi wants to do is to
make sure their IP is preserved.  Hell, a selfish motivation for them to get
behind urq25 is that they could score some marketing fodder by participating
... at the very least you'd wish that they'd want to get a feeling about
what was being planned before making a call on whether or not they'd allow
or disallow it.  

I've got an idea, perhaps we can get a license from Schick ... 

    http://www.schickquattro.com/sq_home_flash.cfm

... my other idea was to make a set of 4 overlapping red chromed rings with
slashes through them ... perhaps with the letters "A" "U" "D" "I" under each
ring ... I think I was a bit angrier then ... or perhaps we can do something
with orttauq ... 

... my response to the "no urq fan will want to pony up Audi prices for
parts" is, sure you're always going to have some contingent who will only go
as far as duct tape and bailing wire to keep their cars going, but there are
some folks who are now paying money to get proper parts for their cars.  I
hear prices for urqs approaching the price I paid for mine (not that I'm
expecting DA222 to ever reach that value).  The example that comes to my
mind is some of the American muscle cars ... the factories had long
abandoned these cars too, but enterprising fans went out on their own to
make proper replacement parts, and eventually the manufacturers came around.
The urq probably doesn't have the numbers for this sort of thing to gel ...
but it is also true nowadays that it can be cheaper to manufacture parts in
smaller quantities than it once was ... 

... my response to "urqs were pretty lackluster cars when they were new"
sentiment ... I didn't think so.  I bought my car in '86, and I did it after
testing Mustang GTs and RX-7s.  Perhaps the early electronic controlled I-5
turbos like the WX had some teething pains that were worked out by the next
refinement of the engine ... but I wouldn't say there were that many other
problems.  OK, the hydraulically assisted brakes with the bomb that goes
flat.  Other than that my car ran a very long time and on some pretty
stressing road trips without skipping a beat.  After buying my car I learned
that it likely had a rough life before I got it, but it didn't seem to
affect reliability.  People tend to compare the 25 year old model to more
current ones, and of course things have improved.  In its day the urq
carried itself well in my book.  There's no question that updating them can
make them much better than they were ... 

Steve B
San José, CA (USA)