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2014 Audi SQ5

It may be obvious at this point, but here in the United States, European manufacturer routinely give us the short end of the stick. Now, I'm not talking about models or brands that don't come here, like the Mercedes-Benz A-Class or the entire Renault line. No, instead, I'm referring to cars that are sold right here in the Land of the Free in one bodystyle, while Europe enjoys the same vehicle with a wider variety of configurations.
A prime example of this is the Audi S4/S5 line. In America, we can have the supercharged twins in two-door coupe, four-door sedan, and cabriolet body styles. Meanwhile, our Euroland cousins get the same trio of bodystyles, as well as the A5/S5 Sportback, a characterful 'four-door coupe,' and a versatile hauler, the S4 Avant. At first glance, Audi of America lacks a vehicle that can compete with the latter's blend of performance, versatility and subdued looks. So, what's an American with around $60,000 and an obsession with quick, conservative haulers to do? Well, he can buy an SQ5. (Though it bears mentioning, our US-spec SQ5 is vastly different than what's available to our European friends.)
The SQ5 has a huge number of things going for it that make it a viable alternative to a proper hot wagon, and foremost among them are its looks - this is a sleeper. Audi has thankfully decided not to molest the clean looks of the standard Q5 when penning the sportier model.

Ferdinand Piech (1937-2019): The man who made VW global

Towering among his peers, a giant of the auto industry died Sunday night in Rosenheim/Upper Bavaria, Germany. Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who conceived the original Volkswagen in the 1930s, was the most polarizing automotive executive of our times. And one who brought automotive technology further than anyone else. Ferdinand Porsche had a son, Ferdinand (called "Ferry"), and a daughter, Louise, who married the Viennese lawyer Anton Piech. They gave birth to Ferdinand Piech, and his proximity to two Alfa Romeo sports cars — Porsche had done some work for the Italians — and the "Berlin-Rome-Berlin" race car, developed by Porsche himself, gave birth to Piech's interest in cars. After his teachers in Salzburg told his mother he was "too stupid" to attend school there, Piech, who was open about his dyslexia, was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. He subsequently moved on to Porsche, where he fixed issues with the 904 race car and did major work on the 911. But his greatest project was the Le Mans-winning 917 race car, developed at breathtaking financial cost. It annihilated the competition, but the family had had enough: Amid growing tension among the four cousins working at Porsche and Piech's uncle Ferry, the family decided to pull every family member, except for Ferry, out of their management positions. Piech started his own consultancy business, where he designed the famous five-cylinder diesel for Mercedes-Benz, but quickly moved on to Audi, first as an engineer and then as CEO, where he set out to transform the dull brand into a technology leader. Piech killed the Wankel engine and hammered out a number of ambitious and sophisticated technologies. Among them: The five-cylinder gasoline engine; Quattro all-wheel drive and Audi's fantastic rally successes; and turbocharging, developed with Fritz Indra, whom Piech recruited from Alpina. The Audi 100/200/5000 became the world's fastest production sedan, thanks to their superior aerodynamics. Piech also launched zinc-coated bodies for longevity — and gave diesel technology a decisive boost with the advent of the fast and ultra-efficient TDI engines. Less known: Piech also decided to put larger gas tanks into cars. Customers loved it. Piech's first-generation Audi V8 was met with derision by competitors; it was too obviously based on the 200/5000.

Audi kills off its 420-hp four-cylinder engine project

Audi's supercar-slapping, fire-breathing four-cylinder concept engine will remain just that, with Autoblog confirming that it has been internally killed off. Speaking at the launch of the TT RS, the engineering boss of Audi's Quattro GmbH division, Stephan Reil, said the Volkswagen Group had stopped all development of the 420-horsepower, 2.0-liter four it showed in the 2014 TT Quattro Sport Concept car (above). Despite previous assurances that Quattro had roles for both the EA888-based engine and Audi's wildly charismatic 2.5-liter, five-cylinder motor, post-Dieselgate reality has killed the smaller engine. "The 400-horsepower EA888 engine is dead," Reil said. The EA888 engine was conceived and developed by the same man behind AMG's powerhouse 2.0-liter four. Friedrich Eichler left AMG to become the Volkswagen Group's gasoline engine development go-to guy, and he was confident the 420-hp engine could be turned into a production car quickly, as was then-Audi development boss, Ulrich Hackenberg. It was even suggested that because the EA888 engine family bolted straight into the Volkswagen Group's ubiquitous MQB small-car architecture, the little powerhouse could be cheaply and quickly dropped into any of the company's cars that needed an image boost. Since then, Quattro has elevated the five-cylinder motor, switching it to an all-alloy block with a magnesium oil pan to cut down its weight while boosting its power and torque levels. Where the four-cylinder engine was shown with 420 hp and 332 lb-ft of torque, the production version of the TT RS's new five-cylinder engine totes 400 hp and 354 pound-feet of torque. The smaller engine's proponents claimed a 0-62 mph acceleration figure of just 3.7 seconds for the concept TT that carried it, and it might not be a coincidence that the all-new TT RS claims exactly the same figure. The 2.0-liter motor had a torque peak that arrived at 2,400 rpm and began to taper off at 6,300 rpm, while its power apexed at 6,700 rpm, thanks in part to a turbocharger that could feed it up to 1.8 bar of air. Flip to the TT RS' data and you're looking at more torque at lower revs and a touch less power, but at higher revs. That's not a lot of wriggle room for the concept engine to operate, especially when the perceived value of the five-cylinder engine is higher than the four, and the four's development and production costs would be higher than the five's.