Yesterday we mentioned how Audi has stormed ahead on the Chinese car market with its A6L sedan and it seems its status as a luxury car brand is doing well elsewhere too - almost surprisingly in Germany itself. The home turf war between Audi, BMW and Mercedes would surely be harder fought that anywhere else in the world, with local loyalties and prejudices held more tenaciously.

But according to Car and Driver, Audi has the best image in Germany compared to the market perception of BMW and Mercedes. Jens Meiners says:

Good news for Audi in the luxury segment: last month’s sales figures for Germany are out, and the A8 surpassed both the Mercedes-Benz S-class and the still-fresh BMW 7-series. This tells you something about the A8′s excellent image here [in Germany]. On common German home turf, Audi is entirely on par with Mercedes and BMW. In fact, one could argue that it has achieved the most comfortable position. Audi quite simply stands for superior innovation and design. Mercedes-Benz, by contrast, seems to go after every niche and struggles to recast itself as a sportier, more youthful brand; BMW tries to shift its focus from aggressive sportiness to “sustainability.”

We’ve always been skeptical about Mercedes-Benz’ push to become “younger”. That might seem cynical of us seeing as we’re still on the youthful side of 40, but really I’ve come to appreciate recently that Mercedes does luxury sedans like no other. They’re just not for me. And we love BMW sportiness, but the whole new ‘i’ thing just doesn’t do it for us.

So could Audi become the world’s next number one luxury German brand? They’re certainly counting on it and a model like the A8 does well across the board. If the Audi A9 coupe makes production,we’ll be very interested to see how it’s received.

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