[V8] [s-cars] Audi Truth in 24

[Wylie Bean]

My only thought to add to this is that Audi had the philosophy of staying with a production-based car for Group B while the other manufacturers went to tube-frame mid-engine purpose-built (wow, three hyphenated words in a row) cars for rallye use.  Not to downplay their effectiveness, but it was still Audi that revolutionized the sport, and to do as well as they did for 3 years (remember it came down to Ivory Coast in 82 to determine the driver's title, and Walter barely beat Michele due to her transmission failure, otherwise they'd have won driver and makes titles in 82 as well as 84) with what they were working with still says a lot.  Had they not seen the writing on the wall and pulled out who knows what may have come about in the late 80's.   I think they'd proven the merits of quattro, and were ready to being it to market full scale, so their job was done.  Unfortunately the unintended acceleration debacle did more to kill Audi's reputation than quattro had done to make it at the time. 

My slightly biased POV...... 8^) 


Wylie Bean (via blackberry)
90 cq
91 90q20v
92 UrS4
08 Q7 3.6P

-----Original Message-----
From: LL - NY <larrycleung at gmail.com>

Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:56:29 
To: <mikellardizabal at yahoo.com>
Cc: I.S. Gall<isgall at gmail.com>; <s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com>; Joe Pizzimenti<joe.pizzimenti at gmail.com>; <theringmeister at triad.rr.com>; V8List Fans<v8 at audifans.com>; urq list<urq at audifans.com>; Ingo Rautenberg<ingo.rautenberg at gmail.com>; Quattro List<quattro at audifans.com>; <S-car-list at audifans.com>
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Audi Truth in 24


Don't forget that in World Rally (back in the eighties) their dominance
lasted all of about 2 seasons (and only one championship) because they had
the only production based AWD car. As soon as the other companies produced
similar concept cars, the S1 and S2 quats were kinda done.

And, if Audi feels it can't afford a full LeMans series or ALMS season, they
don't have the financial stones for F1.  At least, that is my recollection
on why they've turned this season into a 3 race series (Sebring,
Magny-Cours(?) and LeMans).  It kinda made if easy for the Piggie-out team
to do the same. Pretty well, the true Protoype series (I ignore that Bill
France abominition) seems to be done (again) due to a sucky economy (again).
Grrrr.

And still haven't watched it yet, but can't wait. The review in Autoweek had
me stoked over the last month for this program.

LL - NY

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Michael Lardizabal <
mikellardizabal at yahoo.com> wrote:
-------------------snip--------------------------


>
> In the end , it still makes me wonder why Audi continues to shy from F1.
> They always dominate a series once they get involved.  They've got so much
> to offer the F1 world, especially if they campaign a TDI engine.....although
> I think that might make the most mundane sounding F1 car.
>
> ------------------snip-------------------------------