2010 Audi Q7 Tdi Sport Utility 4-door 3.0l on 2040-cars

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Autoblog's adventures at the Nurburgring 24-Hour race [spoilers]

The brand-new Audi R8 LMS, said to share 50 percent of its components with the street-legal R8 shown off at Geneva, has won its very first race at the 2015 Nurburgring 24-Hours. The No. 28 car driven by Christopher Mies, Edward Sandstrom, Nico Muller, and Laurens Vanthoor for the Audi Sport WRT team out of Belgium finished only 40.279 seconds ahead of the No. 25 BMW Sport Team Marc VDS Z4 GT3 in second place, for the smallest winning gap since the race began in 1970. Those two cars traded the lead throughout Sunday morning and were less than a minute away from one another for the last two hours. They were part of a total 35 lead changes during the entire race – a record for the event – and both did 156 laps. Third place went to the No. 44 Falken Tire Porsche 997 GT3, one lap down. The Audis did what they always do: lurked close to the front, stayed out of trouble, then pounced when everyone else faltered. For the opening stretches the BMW Z4 teams owned it, running 1-2-3 for a while, but all of them hit trouble. When morning came and the race got over its yellow-flag fever, the No. 28 Audi was in front and stayed there. It was the third Nurburgring 24-Hour win for Audi in four years, the brand's first win only coming in 2012. Last year's winner, the Phoenix Audi team that set a race record by doing 159 laps, had both of its cars retire. One hit an oil patch about 12 hours in, spun and was hit by another car behind, taking on too much damage to continue. The other retired with engine issues. Other Notes Three cars crashed out of the race while leading, after the rains that weren't supposed to happen, happened about 90 minutes in. The No. 20 Schubert BMW Z4 led the first 50 minutes of the race, hopped a crest at Pflanzgarten, landed in a pool of water, and hit the wall on the 30th lap. Then the No. 30 Frikadelli Porsche, with a driver team that included ex-'Ring Taxi driver Sabine Schmitz, hit the No. 31 Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 on the approach to Carrousel and crashed out. Then the No. 1 Phoenix Audi, last year's winning car, took the lead but hit the wall after that oil patch near Pflanzgarten and was out of the race. Aston Martin celebrated a class win in the SP8 category with the No. 49 Vantage GT4 N430. This being the tenth anniversary of the Vantage running the Nurburgring-24, this year's car was painted in the same colors as the racecar from ten years ago.

Audi passes BMW as top luxury brand in India

By the end of this decade, India is expected to be one of the top three car markets in the world, but automakers are already starting to duke it out for sales. In terms of premium brands, Automotive News says that Audi has jumped out to an early lead for sales in the country due in large part to the recent introduction of the Audi Q3 (shown above).
In 2012, Audi's sales increased 43 percent, rising to 9,350 units and outselling BMW (8,686) and Mercedes-Benz (7,015), both of which experienced a drop in sales last year of 9.5 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. While none of these sales figures are particularly significant on a global scale, the article says that the market for premium cars in India is expected to quadruple by 2020 up to around 120,000 units. AN attributes Audi's lead to its offering of new SUVs while its rivals have been focusing on small hatchbacks.

Audi R8, Lamborghini Huracan could get twin-charged five-cylinder

Engine downsizing and forced induction are some of the biggest trends in automotive powertrains today because. They offer the chance to reduce emissions and boost fuel economy, while possibly maintaining power. The shift is already happening to performance cars with turbocharged four-cylinders finding their way into the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, and future Porsches. Now, there are rumblings of a tiny chance for a similar change coming for the Lamborghini Huracan and Audi R8. Why the new powertrain? China. While the market there might have slowing growth, it's still a major country for auto sales. The annual taxes on cars there also happen to be based on engine displacement, and there's a 40 percent rate on those over 4.0-liters, according to Car and Driver. The obvious answer to this conundrum is to build a smaller displacement, forced induction engine for the R8 and Huracan. Car and Driver points to the new turbocharged and electrically supercharged, 2.5-liter inline five-cylinder from the recent Audi TT Clubsport Turbo concept as a possible solution. Audi's e-turbo technology runs off a 48-volt electrical system and lithium-ion battery to produce a total of 600 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque in the prototype. With this mill, horsepower would barely shrink compared to the R8 V10 Plus and Lambo, but it actually makes more peak torque than their 5.2-liter V10s. While this is all theoretically feasible, take the possibility with a big grain of salt for now. According to Car and Driver, Quattro GmbH's Stephan Reil says that there's no work currently underway to fit the twin-charged five-cylinder, "but it has been talked about." That means such a vehicle is likely years away, if ever. In the meantime, a diesel version of the e-turbo setup is on the way the in the SQ7. Related Video: