The Next Cayenne Will Be An Audi
Audi will be developing all future larger SUVs offered by the many Volkswagen brands: The Porsche Cayenne, the Volkswagen Touareg, the Audi Q7 and whatever other larger 4x4s the other brands might offer (fat chance.) Audi was just handed the “Entwicklungshoheit” (design supremacy) for the brutes. Heretofore, they were designed by Porsche. Don’t cry Porsche, they received another job as a trade.
The catfight over who will be having the Entwicklungshoheit for all future sportscars in the Volkswagen realm has been decided also. And the winner is: Porsche. Audi had tried to get that job, but weren’t given high odds. The boys in Zuffenhause will also design the kit from which all luxury sedans such as the Panamera, and probably the Bentley et all will be built. All in all, not a bad decision.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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These seem like very sensible decisions. The Quattro people do all the SUVs while the sportscar people do the sportscars and very high end luxury sedans. The high end sedan decision was probably a jump ball, but the Panamera pushed it over to the Porsche side of the net.
I wonder where the Audi TT and VW Scirocco fit into future plans?
"I wonder where the Audi TT and VW Scirocco fit into future plans?" Well, both are based upon the Golf platform and they'll probably remain there. Anything else would be very surprising. So VW it is...
I wonder where the Audi R8 fit into future plans? Oh, my god, we need this car until the Acura Nsx resurrection
Does anyone have an idea what this will mean on the SUV side? Better? More complex? Cheaper? Less fiddlely bits?