piech on audi

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

the latest "car" magazine has a follow-on to last month's piech interview,
in which they report on his comments, made at the vw annual financial press
conference.  in he is reported to have said that it would have been cheaper
for vw to build a new brand, rather than to have turned audi into an
alternative for mb and bmw.  he put the price of this at billions of dm and
said that it took 21 years.  he was commenting on the nissan/renault,
damler/chrysler and bmw/rover mergers.  in the very quotable way of his, he
said "a management team that has allowed a company to become a takeover
target should be replaced immediately", clearly in reference to bmw/rover...

"car" continues it's coverage of the bwm/rover mess.  in this issue, it
reveals that bmw has almost no platform sharing strategy and that such
obvious candidates as the x5 and range rover have virtually no single part
in common.  neither does any rover car with any bmw.  a relice of the old
board's strategy.  the new board is apparently firmly committed to platform
sharing now.

the pill is a bitter one for bmw with rover.  bmw have committed to a
high-risk investment plan which will cost 1.7b pounds, simply because the
cost of closing rover was marginally more, without taking account of the
political and social ramifications.  this is not accounting for rovers
losses, pencilled at 650m pounds currently, and unlikely to be in the black
until 2001.  yikes.

the article says that bmw is committed to a fwd platform for the new compact
and is odds on to source technology for this vw.  this is a key decision due
to the requiremrent for the volume of a golf-sized car to compete in europe.

also in the article articles about mickey's shoes, the m1 and the new
williams bmw le mans car, and the new audi al2 (frankfurt release).  tested
are the lexus is2000 winning v the bmw325, the modena (of course), the
bernie bond, the new z3 (posers car not up to the tt, boxster or slk),
marketing the beetle (the worlds toughest job), the honda s2000 (how many
revs are a pain?).  finally a wonderful section on old le mans posters.

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q
'61 mb fintail