Audi book?

[tnas@dtpdirect.nl (Tom Nas, DTP Direct bv)]

Hi all,

This weekend, while browsing through my stack of Audi material, I was
wondering  why nobody has ever done the definitive book about Audi. Sure,
there's the expensive limited-edition UrQ book, there are a couple of badly
reproduced reprints books with old tests, and I've managed to locate a
couple of Dutch language books that are heavy on illustrations of recent
cars but light on history, the quattro advantage story,... in short: what
makes Audis such good cars. I did a little brainstorm session on this
subject, and came up with a list of requirements this book would need to be
of any use to me. The list is below.

Well, what do I want to say with this? It stands to reason that I'd like a
book on Audis that I could use for reference. It will have to be in the
English language to have some success. What are your collective thoughts on
this? Any more people on the list with the facilities or connections to
produce such a book? Thoughts on commercial viability? (I can do DTP and
commercial-quality scanning, design, proofreading, readying for
prepress,...)
I can do some writing, but I'm no tech wiz. Also, I can piece together some
of the Audi history, but I'm no historian. But I rate the people on this
list highly for Audi knowledge, and I hope that we can do something
together- if we all agree that there's a market for this. It doesn't even
have to be in book shape: we might distribute PDFs over the 'net. I'm not
interested in personal fame or copyright issues, more in an interesting
project and the (satisfying?) end result.

-proposal for subjects

1 Auto-Union, DKW, NSU
        racing in the 30s, merger, the 60s and 70s cars
        that gradually became Audis
2 VW-Audi (cross-breeding between the marques)
3 The Quattro revolution
        history
        rallying/racing
4 The 80s and 90s
        road cars
        S-cars
        rallying and racing
5 special cars (Avus, ASF, Quattro spyder, Isotta-Fraschini)
6 The future

My proposal doesn't include (not in this shape, at least) the lists of tech
specs. I'm not sure if these should be included in any form, I'd like your
opinion on this. There *should* be a tech section on all the details of the
quattro system, and I think we can't avoid touching on the UA subject. Have
I forgotten anything?

Is there really a demand for a book like the one outlined above? Or is this
going to be another soon-to-be-abandoned project?
Let me know your collective opinion!

TIA,

Tom
(trying to get some work done on the specs project at the moment)


 _______________________________________________________________________
   Tom W. Nas, graphic design                        tnas@dtpdirect.nl
   DTP Direct bv                              Voice +31 (55) 5 790 799
   Apeldoorn, the Netherlands                   Fax +31 (55) 5 790 125

      He who dies with the most toys, is, nonetheless, still dead.