2007 Audi S8 Awd, Nav, Hs, Bose on 2040-cars

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Felicity Ace sinks with thousands of VWs, Porsches, Lamborghinis

The stricken ship Felicity Ace sank overnight after a week of salvage efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful. The ship, which was carrying up to 4,000 VW Group cars, went to the bottom unexpectedly while a salvage team was attempting to tow it to shore, Bloomberg reports.  "Initial reports from the local salvage team state that the vessel had sunk at around 9AM local time having suffered a list to starboard," Mitsui O.S.K. Lines transportation company (MOL), which owns the Felicity Ace, said in a statement released early Tuesday.    "The last vessel position was around 220nm off the Azores," MOL said. "The salvage crafts will remain around the area to monitor the situation. Further information will be provided as it becomes available." The ship sank after being battered by waves and listing 45 degrees to starboard, the ship’s operator said. “The weather was pretty rough out there,” Pat Adamson, a spokesperson for MOL Ship Management (Singapore), a unit of Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., said by phone. “And then she sank, which was a surprise.” VW, Porsche, Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini-branded models were aboard the ship, which was headed to Rhode Island from GermanyÂ’s Emden port when the fire broke out on Feb. 16.  Rough seas and ongoing fires fueled by the lithium-ion batteries of EVs onboard delayed the ship's salvage and recovery operations for the better part of a week. While the likelihood of salvaging the smoke and potentially fire- and water-damaged vehicles from Felicity Ace's hold was slim to none, some had held out hope that their special-ordered vehicles might survive the mishap.  The Panama-flagged Felicity Ace was safely evacuated of its 22 crew members by the Portuguese navy after a fire started in its hold more than a week ago. The ship can carry up to 4,000 cars. European carmakers declined to discuss how many vehicles and what models were on board, but it appears to have been transporting approximately 2,500 cars, including roughly 1,100 Porsches and an undetermined number of Volkswagens.  The cars aboard were on order. Porsche customers in the United States were being contacted by their dealers, the company said. “We are already working to replace every car affected by this incident and the first new cars will be built soon,” Angus Fitton, vice president of PR at Porsche Cars North America, Inc., told The Associated Press in an email. The ship sank in water nearly 10,000 feet deep, the Portuguese Navy said.

2017 Audi S4 First Drive

For all its power and easy performance, the best thing about the last Audi S4 was its uncanny ability to act like a normal (but very high-spec) A4 for most of its life. Then, when you needed or wanted a bit more speed or a bit more grip, you pushed a button or opened the tap and it became something else. It became a thing with more grip, more poise, more focus, and more gristle, but the changeover between the two S4 characters was seamless. That doesn't seem to be the case with the new one. The latest, B9 A4 has been well received and is probably the best mid-sized premium car out there, so that should have left the S4 a simple job to become the best warmed-up premium mid-sizer. It hasn't quite happened like that. The spec sheet suggests the S4 should come out on top in the fight with the BMW 340i and the Mercedes-AMG C43, but the numbers aren't everything. The engine seems impressive on paper; the all-new EA838 3.0-liter turbocharged V6 was jointly developed with Porsche (and it's closely related to Porsche's next V8, with which it will share non-internal bits like the camshaft chain). The 60-degree V6 weighs 31 pounds less than the old S4's supercharged V6, and it's replete with variable valve timing and lift, centrally mounted fuel injectors, and both direct and indirect fuel injection. That gives it 354 horsepower at 5400-6400 rpm (up 6.5 percent) and 369 pound-feet of torque from 1,370 to 4,500 rpm. That gives it a peak 44 lb-ft higher than the old one, spread across a band 600 revs broader. At 2,000 rpm, where drivers live every traffic light, it has another 74 pound-feet. That's enough motivation to move to 62 mph in 4.7 seconds. There's a new all-wheel-drive system that usually shoots 60 percent of the torque to the back but can ramp that up to 85 percent when it needs to, or it can swing it around to fire more than 70 percent to the front axle. The category benchmarks suggest turbocharged 3.0-liter gasoline sixes are the thing to have, with the Mercedes-AMG C43 using one, the 340i BMW having one (though it's straight), and Maserati's Ghibli also using one. The oddball is Jaguar's XE S, which uses a supercharger. You know, like Audi just ditched. The S4 trumps all but the C43 on power (the nine-speed Benz has 362 hp). While it ties the Ghibli for torque, it again trails the Benz (by 15 lb-ft) though its torque peak hits far earlier (the Benz waits until 2,000 rpm).

2016 Audi TTS Quick Spin

So, this is awkward. Last week, you (hopefully) read my Quick Spin on the Mercedes-Benz C450 AMG, a vehicle that I argued was dynamically very good, but wasn't so much better than the standard C300 to make it a worthwhile buy. Now I'm going to voice a similar opinion. The Audi TT has always been a vehicle you bought for the style, rather than the performance. If you wanted an athletic two-seat German, you just bought a Porsche Boxster. But the TT, that's a car you bought for the way it looks. And the way it looks remains the strongest argument against the car you see here, the TTS. In short, it's quick, agile, and more aggressive looking, but none of those qualities are so dramatically better than the plain-jane TT. Another Autoblogger came to this conclusion while tracking the new TTS – now I'll explain where this car misses the bull's eye on the road. Driving Notes Audi will probably never match the design impact of the original 1998 TT, but the third-gen feels like a more mature, cohesive evolution of the handsome second-generation car. The front and rear fascias are sharper, more muscular, the headlights/taillights chiseled and emotive, and the front grille significantly more powerful. Even in the subdued Daytona Gray shown here, this is a car that can get people staring almost as easily as that original model. The interior of the third-generation TT is as much a design triumph as the first TT's exterior. It's a master class in clean, simple, elegant design, but it's also extremely disorienting. Buttons for the HVAC system are hidden on the vents themselves and not having a central display of any kind is jarring. Once you get used to the layout and embrace the absolutely exceptional Virtual Cockpit – seriously, I'm convinced this is the finest piece of in-car technology on the market – the cockpit layout just starts making sense. This is a compact cabin, but it's a wonderful place to spend time. In addition to Virtual Cockpit, the S Sport seats (optional on the standard TT) are supportive and perfectly snug. Even for the big boned, the flat-bottomed steering wheel is a delight. The material quality is high across the board. Perhaps the biggest complaint is the charitably named backseats. Audi should just go with an R8-style shelf back here – those tiny buckets aren't fooling anyone. It'd make for a more versatile interior. Audi's current TT engine line is restricted to 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinders.