All posts tagged audi q1
Audi Q1 to production
Audi is feeling the compact SUV and crossover love right now, it would seem, as after the brand new Audi Q3 released just recently, we could apparently see an Audi Q1 appear. Beyond competition with the Mini Countryman, we can’t really see the point in a model like this, but it seems nearly all the car makers are racing to create an entire SUV range from small to big. And when you feel like you might be the one left out, that’s a pretty big incentive to build a new model that might or might not be useful.
An Audi Q1 production run is being given as a real possibility, with Autobild saying the Q1 will cost 25,000 euros when it hits the market. The carmaker still hasn’t chosen a Q1 platform to use, though, with a possible option being the A1 Sportback quattro ready for 2013. If Audi decides to wait for the new MQB platform, we may not see the Q1 debut until 2015.
The future ultralight Audi A2 platform could also be an option, as it will be destined for three different models. In this case, the Audi Q1 wouldn’t arrive before 2016 and we wonder if we’d see it all at this point. So perhaps one of the two previous options will emerge, especially as Audi will probably want to take advantage of the current trend in small crossovers.
Audi A1 - first official sketches
Car Magazine has obtained official design sketches of the new Audi A1, Mini-rival from Ingolstadt. They write that these sketches have been “smuggled out of Ingolstadt’s design HQ”.
The Audi A1 will join the B-premium segment (or supermini), a segment that has grown in appeal, with the success of the Mini (and, seemingly, of the Fiat 500). The A1 aims to be a classy hatchback, with Audi’s typical design style and all of the “vorsprung durch technik” rhetoric.
The A1, which should be just under 4 meters long, will be the first car built around VAG’s new MQB formula (”modular transverse matrix”). One can suppose that the MQB is the equivalent for small cars of the MLB platform that Audi has started using on the A5 (and will use for all models from the A4 upwards). The next A3 (coming in 2010) will also be based on the MQB formula, which should help lower the design and assembly costs, thanks to its modularity (according to Audi it will be 1.000 $ cheaper per unit compared to VAG’s current small-car platforms).
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