2007 Audi S6 Base Sedan 4-door 5.2l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Volkswagen Group names Paefgen head of classics program

You may remember the name Franz-Josef Paefgen. Until recently, the German engineer and executive was head of both Bentley and Bugatti. Before that he was chief executive of Audi, after working for several years at Ford. He technically "retired" earlier this year, but like the cars he helped create, an executive like Paefgen could never really retire. So it should come as little surprise that the Volkswagen Group has named Dr. Paefgen head of its Classic program.
In his new capacity, Paefgen will oversee the historic automobile activities of the entire VW Group, including those of Volkswagen, Seat, Skoda, Audi, Lamborghini, and of course Bentley and Bugatti. It strikes us as a suitable semi-retirement for the man responsible in no small part for the Bugatti Veyron and Bentley Mulsanne, to name just two, and who was decorated in 2006 by the ACO as the "Spirit of Le Mans" for his contribution to endurance racing. Read the official announcement after the break.

Get a load of Audi's TTs [w/videos + poll]

The third-generation Audi TT coupe has made its debut here at the Geneva Motor Show, showing an evolutionary design for the German automaker's fashion-forward coupe. As expected, the new TT takes plenty of inspiration from the Sport Quattro Concept that debuted in Frankfurt last year, and it draws upon cues from the model's past two generations.
After seeing it in person, the Autoblog crew on-site in Geneva is sort of torn about the new model. It's crisp and well-proportioned, but in terms of its exterior design, it also doesn't come off like a significant generational leap forward - the aesthetic distance between the original TT and the second-generation model was quite a bit larger. Of course, it's hard to reimagine a design icon, and either way we'll have to wait until we see the car on the road to make final judgments.
Audi is offering a trio of engines for the new TT, including a 2.0-liter turbodiesel powerplant that's good for 184 horsepower, 280 pound-feet of torque and an excellent 56 miles per gallon. On the gasoline front, Audi is offering two versions of its well-liked 2.0-liter TSI turbo-four. The less-powerful spec still offers up a healthy 230 hp and 272 lb-ft of torque, while the higher-output 2.0T sends 310 hp and 280 lb-ft of twist to all four wheels in the TTS coupe. Potent stuff.

New Audi Allroad Shooting Brake concept images leak out, next TT previewed?

The Detroit Auto Show media preview kicks off on Monday, which means the time is just about ripe for previously embargoed images and information to start leaking out onto the web in a major way. Case in point is this Allroad Shooting Brake from Audi, a seemingly close-to-production vehicle that may foreshadow the styling of the upcoming Audi TT, or hint at the looks of a Q1, or both.
The TT bit may seem far fetched, but we do know that Audi has used a small wagon concept to preview the design of an upcoming TT before - back in 2006 before the release of the gen-two car. We also fully anticipate the Q1 to be breaking cover sooner rather than later, so the safe money is that the concept closely resembles what that production vehicle will ultimately look like, though perhaps with a bit more height overall.
And, frankly, be it a TT or Q1 or both, we like what we're seeing. Sharp character lines on a rounded body form follow the idiom of the current TT rather nicely, while the big-wheels-at-all-corners stance plays into the sporting character we'd expect from any small Audi. Inside, we see the same Virtual Cockpit, MMI controller, and vents that we recently took in at CES, though with a slightly different steering wheel (with the starter button built right in). Tidy work here, too.