Re: S4

[John Cunningham <johnc@together.net>]

a respectful rebuttal, mostly in agreement...

ScottyCBoy@aol.com wrote:

> Audi makes commuter cars

disagree, at least from most of the the connotations that 'commuter cars' has

> , that is cars for every day driving, and the

yes, definitely - see next point

> occasional weekend driving event.

nope.  they certainly don't make cars FOR this purpose.  we at the lunatic
fringe may find their cars, particularly  high line ('S') models, may be suited
for such adventures, but this is the last thing that Audi is targeting cars
for.  Audi mainly makes what the industry considers 'luxury sedans'.  what keeps
the lights on in Ingolstadt is selling standard (non-sport) cars to happy execs
and their wives (and husbands) for toodling around town and out to the country
house on the weekends.  being German luxury sedans, they tend to handle very
nicely - 'drivers cars' as they say.  add to that sport enhancements on 'S'
models and you get a pretty nice ride.

however, when a European automaker looks across the pond, they perceive
Americans as wanting/needing LESS sporting ride & handling, and they AREN'T
wrong.  'we' buy sludgomatics on a great majority of cars, and especially on
high end 'luxury' sedans.  just check out the rental counter factor:  in the US
you can't rent a manual transmission to save your life, in Europe you can rent
automatics, but they are solely for the benefit of stupid Amuricans (BTW it bugs
me that the bloke at the counter assumes i need an auto cause I'm a Yank... but
I digress from my digression).  so for a well behaved automatic, you prefer
torque to wringing out the RPM's for hp - hence US getting tractor motors
instead of F1 mills.  makes plenty of sense from a marketing/product positioning
standpoint.  from an enthusiast's viewpoint not so great...

JC