Audi pricing, was BMW IX stuff

[llevitt@idcresearch.com]

Bob writes:

> Oh OH, here I go.... I just read a little history on the Q a little
> while ago, and it was in fact designed in, and they did develop the
> chassis around the AWD system.  This was true for the original Q's, but
> not too sure now. Now you can 'add' quattro for $1500 above base price.
> Does this mean the nonq chassis are actually q platforms, just without
> the awd? Or the q's are the regular platform..... Who knows.

"Adding" quattro for $1,500 over base price was not an engineering issue. It's a
*marketing* issue. Audi wants to sell more quattros. Hence their more realistic 
pricing.

BTW, when we were looking for a new car 3 years ago, I was astonished by the 
difference in pricing between the Audi 100 and comparable cars. The 100 sedan 
and wagon ran low to mid $30s, the quattro option boosted it to almost $40K.

Conversely the Saab 9000 was in the mid to high $20s and the 850, from some 
unnamed Swedish manufacturer, was $24,500 (when it debuted in '92/'93).

We didn't buy an Audi then. But we own one now :-)

Note that the *new* 100 pricing is *lower* than it was 4 years ago...they've 
brought some sanity to their pricing...someone figured out that just because the
cars are *obviously* better doesn't mean that the company can charge more for 
them....

Lee Levitt
(marketing consultant)
llevitt@idcresearch.com

1990 Audi 200 61K
1988 Volvo 745T 106K