As you may have guessed, this year's edition of the Super Bowl football extravaganza will be jam-packed with automotive advertisements. Following the 2012 VW Passat and Beetle TV spots we showed you earlier today, we now bring you two teaser commercials from Audi, both centered around the 'Goodbye to Old Luxury' campaign for the new A8 limo. Click past the jump to watch for yourself.
An Audi A3 Sportback owner in New York City's East Village received a chilly surprise on Monday after finding his car literally encased in ice. The freakish incident occurred after a pipe broke under the street sometime during the weekend causing a sinkhole that formed a small pond around the Audi. The passing cars splashing water all over the A3 and subfreezing temperatures did the rest. As you can see in the video after the jump, the ice was so thick that the owner's attempts to free the car from its frozen cage with a chisel and a hammer proved futile.
Now here's a video worthy of the all-new Audi RS3's sporty credentials and quattro heritage. Forget about the bland static footage of the car released at launch because this clip is -mostly- about having some slideways fun on the snow accompanied by the howling sounds of the RS3's 340HP turbocharged inline-five. Enjoy the 7 minute long film, which was shot in Canada, right after the break.
With its new commercial for the 2011 A8, Audi of America is opening a fresh chapter in the advertisement wars. Taking inspiration from the 1947 children’s book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, the ad portrays S-Class owners as gluttonous people with an excessive lifestyle, representing the age of “old luxury”. The 60 second clip is said to be a prelude to the upcoming Super Bowl TV spot, set to air in the first break on Super Bowl Sunday, February 6, 2011. Hit the jump to watch the video.
The Audi brand ended 2010 with a new sales record in the U.S. and is now looking forward to an even more successful 2011, as demand for luxury vehicles is high in the States. Spearheading the firm's growth in the U.S. is the all-new 2012 A6 sedan, which made its debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Form a design standpoint, Audi's executive saloon is a discrete evolution over the previous model. However, it does come with an array of new gizmos, such as adaptive air suspension and dynamic steering. At launch, the A6 will be available in the States with a 3.0-liter supercharged V6 engine, but Audi is considering the introduction of a six-cylinder diesel version as well.
Scroll down to check out the gallery of live pictures from the Detroit motorshow as well as a new video clip.
Who would have thought that BMW's all-wheel drive systems were enough to shame Audi's famous quattro system? Not the average consumer, that's for sure (though BMW certainly has had enough time to get it right). BMW, which has actually been making AWD cars for the past 25 years, has decided to begin more aggressively targeting consumers who live in harsher climates.
According to this video, BMW's xDrive is vastly superior to Audi's quattro - at least when driving up metal inclines built by BMW... In the clip, we get a glimpse at what appears to be some sort of BMW press event and a hill climb-off between two small-ish diesel-powered premium soft-roaders: Audi's Q5 and BMW's X3.
Although the X3 depicted here may not be the first pick on a lot people's lists, the comparison below is just used as an example. After all, xDrive is now available on a variety of products in BMW's lineup. Could it be that BMW has bested Audi at its own game?
Interested in seeing vids of the new 'anniversarious' Audi quattro concept? You know you are, and we aim to please. As a brief recap, you should know that this RS5-based concept is powered by a 408-horsepower inline-five displacing 2.5 liters that spins all four wheels through a 6-speed stick.
Below, you can check out some videos - one techno-backed and short, the other long, quiet, and mostly slow motion - highlighting some of the car's killer (checkered tail lights) and not so killer (the entire front end?) Details. Click on over to our earlier post for the full deets, but leave your opinions in the comments right down below.
From what we've been seeing in that previous post, a lot of you readers aren't too keen on it. Now that you've seen a little more, has your opinion changed? You just know Audi's listening, so do the comment thing below.
At the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Canada, communications Company Lowe Roche has stuck hundreds of 1:43 scale Audi quattro models to metal surfaces as part of an ad campaign by Audi.
Fitted with strong magnets and stuck to lamp posts, newspaper boxes and the like, passers-by were encouraged to remove the die-cast models and take them home with them. On the underside of each model is a sticker that reads, "Nothing sticks like quattro."
The models include the Audi R8 coupe / convertible, Q5 SUV and TT.
"We wanted to give people a real demonstration of how great the [quattro all-wheel-drive] system is. It's also a great way to get the brand into the consumer's hand." said Geoffrey Roche, company founder and chairman of Low Roche when asked about the campaign.
Audi is also pushing its wares through magazine and newspaper ads, escalator wraps and online advertising through the festival, which is held annually each September.
Audi gone viral or someone at the right place, with... almost the right equipment at the right time? Well, we can't answer that, but we do know that a Youtube user filmed a series of videos showing a mysterious Audi sports coupe (or Spyder) in covers being transferred via helicopter to the Olympia Ski Resort in the Tyrolean Alps, close to Innsbruck, in Austria - or at least that's what we understood, so any corrections welcome. The person who filmed the car said Audi was making some sort of a promotional video.
The mysterious Audi sport coupe's shape looks very similar to the e-Tron Concept model shown at the Detroit motor show earlier this year, but that's all we could make about the vehicle from the videos we've added below.
While the possibilities are almost endless, recent reports from Germany suggest that along with the A7 Sportback and S1 hot hatch, Audi will lift the covers off a more production ready version of the e-Tron Concept called the R4 - possibly in Spyder form- at this month's Paris Motor Show.
Could this be that car or is it something different such as a concept version for a new TT? Watch the videos below and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Here's another spy video of the A7 Sportback, Audi's upcoming, low-roofline hatchback [sic]. Based on the architecture of the next-generation of the A6, the A7 will slot into the Audi lineup above the A6 and below the A8, in the same way that the A5 Sportback fits between the A4 and A6 models.
The upscale five-door model will compete with the new Mercedes-Benz CLS, and if the rumors turn out to be true, with the BMW 6-Series GT (or whatever else the Bavarian firm's decided to call the production Gran Coupe) also, when it goes on sale next year.
Tear away the prototype model's swirly camouflage, and we're willing to bet that what you'll see underneath is a toned-down version of the Sportback Concept that premiered at the 2009 Detroit auto show (see gallery below).
The new A7 will share its engines and transmissions with the next A6 offering buyers a choice of petrol and diesel units including Ingolstadt's 3.0-liter supercharged V6 TFSI, while rumor has it that Audi will expand the range in late 2011 with a gasoline-electric hybrid model.
An S7 with either a pumped up version of the supercharged 3.0-liter V6 or a naturally-aspirated 4.2 V8, as well as an even hotter RS7 possibly with the 5.2-liter V10 are also believed to be in development, but details remain scarce for now.
These are the first pictures of Audi's driverless TTS Pikes Peak experimental model in Ingolstadt's traditional motorsports colors. Audi is currently gearing up the so-called "Autonomous TTS" for high-speed test runs up Pikes Peak in Colorado this fall.
"With the changed appearance, the Autonomous Audi TTS Pikes Peak is now squarely aligned with Audi cars that made motorsports history a generation ago in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb and other rally racing events," said the German manufacturer in a statement.
Based on the standard production model using the same 2.0-liter turbocharged four-pot, the Autonomous TTS Pikes Peak vehicle is a joint project between the Volkswagen Group Automotive Innovation Laboratory (VAIL) in Palo Alto, California, Stanford University and Sun Microsystems.
The Autonomous TTS is equipped with a fully automated drive-by-wire system that controls the steering, throttle, brakes, gearbox and parking brake as well as a special GPS system to help communicate with the piloting software, thus eliminating the need of a driver inside the car.
The company says it's "intended to explore the best capabilities of current and future driver assistance technologies."