Audi A8l, 2008, Quattro, Awd, 94300 Mi, $19900. Perfect Shape on 2040-cars

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2017 Audi Q7 Second Drive

One morning, I'm driving down the Malibu coast, top-down in a two-seat sports car. Twelve hours later, I'm on a straight road, in traffic, and piloting a seven-seat SUV. I think this is how new parents feel. There's no other word but "parental" to describe how three-row crossovers, like this 2017 Audi Q7, make me feel. Whether it was the Honda Pilot that was actually kind of tossable, or the plush Kia Sorento, one glance in the rear-view mirror at five headrests makes you wonder if someone isn't waiting for you outside an elementary school. The Q7, however, has always been a luxury car first. And this second-generation model is crammed with technology and convenience features to make life more effortless, as if it was designed for a person who lives in Bel Air but also must take the kids to horse-riding lessons on the one weekend it rains in Southern California. Autoblog already tested a European example, but I'm now getting the chance to finally drive it Stateside. When it comes to the Q7's appearance, I always seem to have a minority opinion. The old one looked like a bus when plenty of people said it looked beautiful. This new one has been widely criticized for looking like a wagon, but I don't see a lot wrong here. At some angles, it's reminiscent of the old 5000 Avants from the '80s – probably not a coincidence, since the Q7 is Audi's most prestigious wagon right now. Even Audi admits it pulled from the '80s with styling cues along the rear quarter panels and the ever-larger "Quattro" badges. While the shape grows on you, it isn't going to stop people seeing it and thinking it's a Q5. The new Audi Q7 has an incredible sense of elegance about it. The most ambitious design touches are the arrows in the LED lights, front and rear, but they're ultimately dwarfed by the size of the car. What's more, the string of white, silver, and gray cars on hand at our test aren't exactly striking, and the optional 20-inch wheels are boring in design. You could also call this "quiet luxury." Or perhaps stately. The new Audi Q7 has an incredible sense of elegance about it, never feeling ponderous like a truck and always feeling secure like a large luxury sedan. As the first application of the Volkswagen Group's MLB Evo platform, it really is a large luxury wagon. Which is the exact image the company seems to be running from.

Audi TT Offroad concept packs 408 hybrid horsepower, yet returns 123 mpg

Audi took the wraps of its TT Offroad Concept at the Beijing Motor Show, after teasing us with sketches earlier this month. "The Audi TT offroad concept provides a glimpse of how we might imagine a new model in the future TT family," says Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Member of the Board of Management for Technical Development. "It combines the sporty genes of the TT with the strengths of a compact Audi SUV."
The latest in Audi's eTron show cars reminds us an awful lot of the the Audi Allroad Shooting Brake concept that debuted a few months ago at the Detroit Auto Show. In addition to very similar physical appearances, the two share the same plug-in hybrid propulsion systems (the "plug-in" part is a bit misleading, as the concept simply needs to be parked over an inductive pad to take advantage of Audi Wireless Charging technology).
Proving that hybrid power never has to be a compromise, the TT Offroad Concept packs a 292 horsepower turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder under the hood. The combustion engine is assisted by two electric motors (rated at 40 kW at the front and 85 kW at the rear) to provide a total system output of 408 horsepower and nearly 480 pound-feet of torque. With all-wheel drive, the concept hits 60 mph in 5.2 seconds and tops out at 155 mph - while returning a provisional fuel efficiency of 123 miles per gallon equivalent.

Audi revising own history in light of 'shocking' study of Nazi-era activities

Daimler opened up its archives for research into its Nazi affiliations for one book published in 1990 and another in 1998. The Quandt family behind BMW had its public catharsis in 2007. The ties between the National Socialists and the Porsche and Piech families have almost rendered the Volkswagen Beetle some kind of cult tchotchke of the Third Reich. And it's not just automakers called in for cleansing: Deutsche Bank credit helped build Auschwitz, Hugo Boss made Nazi uniforms, patriarch of food and frozen pizza giant Dr. Oetker volunteered for the Waffen-SS. As one historian said, for any business that wanted to stay in business during the war, "no company was really clean. Everyone had to resort to slave labor when their own workers were fighting at the front."
Audi is the latest to go public with findings from an in-depth study of the Nazi-affiliated past of Auto Union, its predecessor company, and the "Father of Auto Union" Dr. Richard Bruhn, the man who headed it pre- and post-war. Commissioned by Audi, written by Audi's history department head Martin Kukowski and University of Chemnitz historian Rudolf Boch, its findings are just as severe as those already heard so often over the past 20 years. Among other discoveries, the study found that not only did Brun manage the use of more than 3,700 forced labor camp workers from seven SS-run camps, 16,500 forced laborers that didn't live in camps worked in two more factories; Bruhn wanted even more laborers but couldn't get them because of the battlefield situation; and that Auto Union had "moral responsibility" for roughly 4,500 workers killed at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. The study found that disabled workers were routinely sent to the camp and executed there.
Audi works council head Peter Mosch said, "I'm very shocked by the scale of the involvement of the former Auto Union leadership in the system of forced and slave labor. I was not aware of the extent." The company is figuring out how it will respond to the findings, so far working on changing the online profile of Dr. Bruhn on its history pages on Audi sites around the world, and considering stripping Brun's name from the street that bears it and from company offerings like pension plans. If you can read German or can work Google Translate, Wirtschaftswoche has a long piece on the study and its conclusions.