piech interview in "car"

["Dave Eaton" <Dave.Eaton@clear.net.nz>]

i seem to keep doing this with every new issue of car magazine.  no
affiliation, really!

the april issue has an interview with piech which is rare.  they obviously
like him, and the article has a positive spin.  he has the grace to deny
fathership of the quattro, the "godfather" of the quattro is all he claims.
he does claim "ownership" of the a8.  the idea came to him he said, because
of the way he saw aluminium cans being recycled.  it is an excellent article
in that it discusses the piech family background, and has piech talking
about it a bit.

also some more detail on the bentley hunaudieres.  the 8-litre 64 valve v16
(bore 84mm, stroke 90.2mm - sorry michael) motor runs apparently, and is
based (as expected) on two narrow-angle vr8 units (so the vr8 unit clearly
exists).  because of this, it is more compact than a v12.  the motor is
designed for high torque with 450 lb ft available at 1500rpm!  this is to be
consistent with the "bentley character".  the awd system used is that from
the a8.  this makes sense, given that the prototype is mid-engined.  it uses
the a8 torsen gearbox as well.  with 561 lb ft of torque and 623bhp of
power, this says something about build quality of the a8 transmission.  an
intriguing comment from the ceo of bentley says that he is looking for the
transmission to be given "electronic diffs" - is this a reference to a
likely move by vwag to haldex-based hang-on clutches?  again, car is
positive about the car, and the photography does do the car more justice
than the other shots which i've seen.

when you consider the use that vwag has got out of the
originally-controversial narrow-angle v6, the genius of the engine is
becoming apparent when you consider that it is used in everything from the
v5 through to the v18 for the bugatti.  in all cases having considerable
packaging benefits (size & weight) over comparable competitive units.

another article pits the v5 seat toledo against the 156 alfa and despite a
deficit in the on-the-limit-on-the-road department, it was the preferred
car.  car loved the narrow angle v5, complete with the 5-cylinder burble and
very good throttle response.  it seems that the vwag is finally addressing
this issue of driver involvement/enjoyment.  a surprising and perhaps
controversial win to the seat.  a good result given that piech has
positioned seat against alfa (the southern european thing), and that the
design chappie from alfa is now working for seat.

also a write-up on the seat "formula" show car (mid-engined, awd 204hp).
this car is designed by the "dce" vwag design studio, and by none other than
erwin himmel of audi quattro spyder fame (1991).  the formula is based
around an aluminium spaceframe chassis with an all-up weight of only 900kgs.
simply stunning interior details, and a sequential shift.  exterior styling
is interesting and out-of-the-square.  it is great to see the components of
the vwag group given such free reign to "do their thing"...

to finish up, car has an article on the building of a diablo (you know, from
lamborghini, the audi brand), with a rather special shot of a woman using a
pipe cleaner to clean the exhausts of a car rolling off the production line.

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q