Re: What status does Audi have? Q. to US people.

[kaplanr@shearson.com (Roger Kaplan)]

In the 80's, the Audi 5000 was one of the best selling yuppie cars.  
Then the news about the unintended acceleration causing mothers to
kill their own children started emerging, and Audi sales dropped off.
Audi's biggest marketing mistake was to blame the drivers for the error,
not the car (even though that's exactly what later tests concluded).
As a result, Audis became politically incorrect (ha!) and "that other" brand
(after Mercedes, BMW, etc.)

It's been a long climb back up.  Audi started giving away 3 year complete
maintenance and guaranteed resale packages (called "Audi Advantage") to
start selling cars again.  They also priced their cars pretty aggressively
vis-a-vis Mercedes, BMW and Volvo.  They also earmarked a disproportionate
percentage of their new 80/90 production for shipment to the US, even though
it would create shortages in Europe, where the models were selling like crazy. 

I don't think Audi will completely regain its cachet in the US.  That's fine
with me.  I purchased my Audi for several reasons:

1) The quattro, Torsen differentials and ABS brakes combination blew away,
from an engineering perspective, anything BMW, Volvo, SAAB, or MB had to
offer, in the price range.

2) The 80/90's were brand new, and therefore more distinctive (and not as
ubiquitous) as 100 series Mercedes or BMW 325i's.  They are still pretty
unusual.

3) The German-foreign-car showoff factor was greatly diminished because of
Audi's bad rap. 

Basically, superior engineering without the herd mentality or 
attitude... just my style.