More about high revs

[Scott Fisher <sefisher@cisco.com>]

So on the way home from work last night, as I was enjoying the way the
European cams in my non-Audi really start moving the car quite briskly
after they cross 5000 RPM (saw 5500 in *fourth* -- whoo-hoo!), I thought
some more about the "why do Audis rev so high?" issue.

I remembered something a friend of mine with *truly* weird cars once
told me about his 1964 TVR Grantura Mk. III (specs: 1500 lb tube-frame
coupe, interesting if slightly weird styling, ~100-bhp engine, fully
independent suspension, fairly quick but breathtakingly nimble).  

Today, TVR is currently the largest remaining British automaker --
meaning "that hasn't been bought up by someone else."  They make
unapologetic sports cars exclusively, two-seat roadsters and coupes with
light weight, powerful engines, and razor-sharp handling. But they began
in the late Fifties when Trevor Wilkinson (who gave three of the
consonants in his first name to the car company) decided he'd like to
make some neat handbuilt sports cars for himself and a few like-minded
friends.

I noticed, the first time I drove my friend Jody's '64, that the seat
didn't adjust -- it was bolted to the floorpan, in fact -- and I
commented that it was a good thing I fit in it fairly well.

"That's what you get with a TVR," Jody said.  "These cars are pretty
much the way Trevor wanted them to be, and if you didn't like them, you
bought something else."

He really has a point, not just about TVRs, but about any car that could
reasonably be described as a "specialist," "enthusiast," or "niche"
car.  Domestic and Japanese -- heck, all mass-market carmakers live in
fear that if you don't like it, you'll buy something else.  The closer a
car came to the vision of one individual, the less that carmaker cared
about whether you bought something else.  (That, too, has been the death
of more than one grand marque, one way or another.)

So Audi may be on the conservative and/or high-volume side of
niche-market cars, compared to TVR (of course, Bentley is a high-volume
manufacturer compared to TVR).  But they are distinct from mass-market
cars in many ways, which I think is why most of us here are drawn to
them.  On the plus side, I suspect it's why Audi have such a range of
performance-oriented engines, including the most technically interesting
engines on the market today (with the possible exception of some of
their counterparts at VW -- the VR5 comes to mind).  On the minus side,
it does mean some unexpected behavior when compared to other cars --
like revving at a comparably higher RPM for the same highway speed. 
(Let's leave doorhandles and window switches out of it for the time
being. :-)  

It's important that this not come off as though I'm telling Sam, "that's
the way it is, and if you don't like it, buy something else."  That's
NOT what's in my mind at all.  It's more that the high freeway RPM --
like the stiff, supportive seats, good interior volume for exterior
size, the way the controls are all weighted with such balance of low
effort with high feedback, and so much else about these cars -- is part
of the specific character of these cars.  (Let's leave doorhandles and
window switches out of it for the time being.  Again.  :-)  You're
certainly free not to like it -- heck, my brother in law doesn't like
chocolate, but we still invite him to family dinners.  But I encourage
you to play with it.  Have fun, and see what it adds to the experience
if you interpret it as a conscious design decision on the part of the
carmaker.  

 --Scott Fisher, Sunnyvale CA
   '83 Audi Coupe GT
   '74 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce
   '67 Alfa Romeo Giulia GT 1300 Junior 
   (relative size of car inversely proportional to length of name)