A few weeks ago, a trailer for Audi‘s Truth in 24 II: Every Second Counts documentary was unleashed onto the Internet packed with plenty of high-speed action at arguably the world’s most famous race. Now you can grab your favorite Apple device and download the film for free on iTunes.
It’s hard to believe that the R8 has already been in production since 2006 and so the Audi flagship sports car is long overdue for a makeover.
Audi revealed its 2013 A3 three-door hatchback at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, but since then has been a little bit quiet with its five-door variant dubbed the ‘Sportback’.
Arguably the world’s toughest endurance race, the 2012 Nürburgring 24 Hours ended with the Audi Sport Team Phoenix R8 LMS ultra capturing the victory after 155 grueling laps on the ‘Green Hell’.
It’s the first victory for the German automaker at the famous Nürburgring 24 race with drivers Marc Basseng, Christopher Haase, Frank Stippler, and Markus Winkelhock at the wheel. Second place also went to Audi with Chris Mamerow, Christian Abt, Michael Ammermüller, and Armin Hahne finishing behind their fellow Audi teammates while representing Mamerow racing.
Third place went to the Hankook-Team Heico Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 driven by Christian Frankenhout, Andreas Simonsen, Pierre Kaffer, and Lance David Arnold who barely edged out the Wochenspiegel-Porsche 911 GT3 R with Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas, Lucas Luhr, and Richard Lietz behind the wheel.
As expected, the race was not without any drama with less than one-third of the 31 GT3-spec race cars having trouble-free races. Team Schubert’s BMW Z4 GT3 held the pole and the race early on but lost six laps from a driveshaft failure. Its sister car experienced gearbox issues after leading, leaving the race down to fellow German automakers Audi and Mercedes-Benz to face off.
Audi’s top entry, the number-2 Phoenix car, crashed in the early morning after rain fell in the 15th hour. The ROWE Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 took over the lead before it found trouble with a suspension failure that ultimately took it out of the race with six hours to go.
This is the fourth Nürburgring 24 Hour attempt for the Audi R8 LMS race car and marks a historic 1-2 sweep along with Audi’s first win. As for Team Phoenix, it’s enjoying its second win after capturing the title in 2003 with an Opel Astra V8 Coupe.
“It was a great weekend for us, for the whole team,” Winkelhock said. “We had a perfect car that had no problems. It’s just amazing to stand on the podium. It was a really tough race and is really competitive.”
Today’s cars all seem to be focused on delivering fun driving experience that’s still friendly on gas. Those two elements are often an important factor in a car purchase, but sometimes you just want to feral thrill of a big, loud engine.
Augmented reality might be a word you’re much more familiar with when you’re ready to shop for a new car, but in case the idea is completely foreign, here’s what it means and why.
Audi, along with other manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari, have taken to YouTube recently to send out thanks to each company’s fans and faithfuls, releasing videos of cars doing extraordinary things. Audi has now revealed a follow up, which chronicles the making of its thank you video.
It doesn’t matter that there were only a handful of races run on Europe’s second-oldest track, at least not anymore.
At the annual Worthersee Tour in Austria, Audi will be bringing its new e-bike Worthersee prototype which will be on display alongside the Audi Q3 Red Track, Q3 jinlong yufeng and RS Q3.
In an always competitive market, Audi has plans to become the largest luxury automaker in the world, and has filed papers with the European trademark office to protect seven new car names likely to be seen on upcoming models.
Luxury cars are expensive to maintain, but a little-advertised program called “Ultimate Service” takes care of that for folks who buy a new BMW.
There are a lot of car stereotypes out there, like that Toyota builds dull appliances. While true on many fronts, the Japanese automaker does also make exciting sporty cars like the Scion FR-S, and Lexus LFA, both praised for their exhilarating rides, edgy styling and pulse-raising performance. But there’s another stereotype that needs to be dealt with.
Likely you’ve heard the phrase “German engineering” more than a few times in your life and there’s a popular misconception that it equals good reliability. German cars are well engineered, sometimes to be amazing performance machines and sometimes to be incredibly high-tech (and often both) but, Porsche aside, German cars don’t have the best track record for reliability.
Seinfeld coined the term “shrinkage” on May 12, 1994 in reference to George Costanza’s little problem, but Larry David, the show’s storied creator probably never expected automakers to champion the idea, albeit in a mechanical sense.
Audi used the Spa 6 Hours to debut its newest race cars, the R18 Ultra and the R18 e-tron quattro, delivering a thrilling premiere with highly successful results.
The German automaker claimed a 1-2-3-4 finish, with its R18 Ultra taking first and third, and the diesel hybrid e-tron quattro taking second and fourth. So at least for one race, diesel has triumphed over diesel hybrid, but Spa Francorchamps was still a very impressive debut for the new R18 e-tron quattro race car. In fact, the pair of hybrid race cars actually dominated the action initially before a strategic tire change gave the R18 Ultra an advantage.
The data gained from the successful outing of the R18 e-tron quattro models will play a pivotal role for Audi as it heads to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Toyota originally planned on debuting it TS030 hybrid race car at the same event at Spa Francorchamps, but had to postpone it due to a major accident. Audi will not only have a victory under its belt heading to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but a ton of data and experience with its race cars.
The hybrid, all-wheel drive Audi R18 e-tron quattro race car sporting a diesel powerplant will make its race debut at Spa Francorchamps this weekend.
This story probably would have made you laugh a few years ago. It would have seemed unthinkable, impossibile even. All the same, BMW is working with Hyundai to produce engines.
Marking a milestone in one of the key hindrances to plague electric vehicles (EVs) thus far, eight of the word’s automakers have agreed to unify on a harmonized charging system capable of a 15-minute recharge.
Audi is jumping back into the documentary film making game with its Truth in 24 II documentary, the first of which was released three years ago.
Audi made headlines this year after overtaking Mercedes-Benz for the first time to become the world’s second-largest luxury automaker.
The importance of social media these days in an automakers marketing department is stronger than ever, and Audi went so far as to prepare a little thank you video for all of its fans on Facebook.
BMW will return to Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) after an almost 20-year absence. To celebrate the occasion, which will occur this weekend, the automaker release a video showing its awesome car running around a track with dramatic music in the background.
Little will change on the surface of the 2013 Audi Q5, but that’s alright because it’s a handsome vehicle with three new engine options for the U.S. market.
The newly redesigned Audi A3 debuted at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, and now we have spy photos of the S3 performance version out testing on the Nurburgring.
