Audi A4 photos show bling LEDs

Audi has released photos and some spec info on its new A4, which will officially debut at the 2008 Frankfurt auto show in September.
Most notable to tech enthusiasts may be the optional xenon headlights that include 14 LED lights. These are "daytime driving lights" aka LED bling for your car. Audi refers to them as "wings." I think they look more like eyelashes. You can see what they look liked turned on below.
As for the goodies for the driver into automation, the new A4 will include lane departure warning, blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control.
The A4 also has a an electro-mechanical parking/emergency brake button in lieu of a parking brake lever. With more room in that area, Audi offers an armrest with two 12-Volt power sockets beneath it as an extra. A new radio-operated key can store car settings, lock and unlock the car and start the ignition with a button push.

The car will come with 5 different engine options, including a turbo-charged diesel, in keeping with Audi's efforts to turn its Le Mans win into diesel cash. The A4's gas engine will also come in a turbo-charged version.

The transmissions available include a six-speed manual, an automatic and a multitronic continuously variable. You can also choose whether you want the A4 in front-wheel drive or Audi's "quattro" permanent all-wheel drive.

Source: http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9768309-1.html?part=rss&subj=Crave

Audi A4 photos show bling LEDs

Audi has released photos and some spec info on its new A4, which will officially debut at the 2008 Frankfurt auto show in September.
Most notable to tech enthusiasts may be the optional xenon headlights that include 14 LED lights. These are "daytime driving lights" aka LED bling for your car. Audi refers to them as "wings." I think they look more like eyelashes. You can see what they look liked turned on below.
As for the goodies for the driver into automation, the new A4 will include lane departure warning, blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control.
The A4 also has a an electro-mechanical parking/emergency brake button in lieu of a parking brake lever. With more room in that area, Audi offers an armrest with two 12-Volt power sockets beneath it as an extra. A new radio-operated key can store car settings, lock and unlock the car and start the ignition with a button push.

The car will come with 5 different engine options, including a turbo-charged diesel, in keeping with Audi's efforts to turn its Le Mans win into diesel cash. The A4's gas engine will also come in a turbo-charged version.

The transmissions available include a six-speed manual, an automatic and a multitronic continuously variable. You can also choose whether you want the A4 in front-wheel drive or Audi's "quattro" permanent all-wheel drive.

Source: http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9768309-1.html?part=rss&subj=Crave

Audi RS6 may produce more than 600 HP

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Alfa Brera V6 v Audi S3 v BMW 130i v Mazda 3 MPS

The most telling moment of a group test is rarely reported. It often occurs when the sun is going down and the photographer is artfully composing his final shots (or faffing, as we road testers call it), and it is simply this: which car do you want to take home? As a measure of which is the most desirable car, it's the most honest indicator there is. The one certainty in this test is that whatever the choice, the car isn't going to lack power. All four contenders have around 260bhp, comfortably in excess of the average fast hatch, though the way it is created and deployed is unique to each.

Just landed is the three-door version of the BMW 130i M Sport with the excellent 261bhp Valvetronic straight-six powering the rear wheels. With its flanks broken by two big doors rather than four little ones, it looks cleaner and smaller somehow, while BMW's engineers have taken the opportunity to mildly tweak the suspension and steering. At £26,385 it's a mere £530 less than the five-door version.

Slightly more expensive, at £26,975, and exactly as powerful, the Audi S3 boasts the most potent version of VAG's FSI turbocharged 2-litre in-line four and shares its 261bhp between all four wheels. Yet even with its RS4-style 'goatee' grille and optional pearlescent blue paint, the S3 looks rather plain beside the BMW.

Not quite as plain as the Mazda 3 MPS though, even in revised 'Sports Aero Kit' spec, which brings a bigger tailgate spoiler, smaller door mirrors and, crucially, lowered and stiffened Eibach suspension. Its 2.3-litre turbocharged in-line four cooks up 256bhp and 280lb ft, making it the torquiest engine here, and all that urge is fed through the front wheels only. The MPS is the most potent front-drive hatch on sale and also the least expensive car here at a mere £19,495.

Park it next to the Alfa Romeo, though, and it is practically invisible. Like the original TT, the Brera made the leap from show car to production car largely intact, and from any angle it's bold and distinctive. This is the range-topping 3.2 JTS V6 Q4, with four-wheel drive and a 256bhp quad-cam 3.2-litre V6 in its nose, and in this spec doesn't come cheap – it costs £29,250.

Pre-match favourites are all very well, but the joy of group tests is that they throw up surprises and reveal strengths and weaknesses more readily and with greater definition than a solo drive can. And there were a few surprises along the way here, including a new fastest hot hatch lap at the Bedford Autodrome and a new best hot hatch 0-60 time at Millbrook.

Verdict
Well, if you're on a tight budget and all you want to do is go fast, or if you've got a bank job lined up, the Mazda is the car for you. The MPS offers an awful lot of performance for the money, but not a lot else. That it can actually get almost 260bhp to the road through just the front wheels effectively is extraordinary, but in the final analysis it feels like a hotted-up hire car.

In many respects, the Alfa is its opposite. Extrovert inside and out and powered by an engine that brims with character rather than raw power. The more I drove it, the more I liked it, but it really needs to make its mind up whether it's a sports car or a very capable luxury coupe. It feels closer to the latter, despite the clunky auto, and while it's far from perfect and costs too much, that's true of most indulgences, isn't it?

The Audi S3 and BMW 130i M Sport are way out in front. The Audi is more of a drivers' car than it appears, with keen steering and a poised and adjustable chassis, and after its turns at Millbrook and Bedford there's no questioning its pace and ability. The BMW has more spirit, a superb engine and a wonderful gearshift, and an intrinsically more demanding and engaging layout. It remains a flawed car though, the feel of its chassis occasionally vague, its ride confounded by particularly lumpen B-roads. It's a close call. The Audi is the logical, rational choice, the winner on points, but for all its faults, the BMW is the car most of us want to take home.

Source: http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/cargrouptests/209950/alfa_brera_v6_v_rivals.html

Audi S3

It's an effortless, comfortable long-distance car with an easy poise, excellent refinement and useful flexibility.

Having driven the Audi on its German launch (evo 097), I was expecting a not-dissimilar experience. The S3 isn't a car that causes many second glances but, as you'd expect, it's shot through with quality that's lacking in the Mazda. The fit and finish and sense of integrity are deeply satisfying, the seats are superb and the driving position is excellent.

A few miles in, it's clear that the S3 is a very polished car. Its turbocharged four-cylinder engine is just pipped for outright thrust by the MPS's, but it sounds better, revs more smoothly and boosts from lower revs. The four-wheel-drive system delivers absolute traction with no fight at the wheel, but in contrast to the Mazda and Alfa, the steering gives a good impression of how hard you're working the front end. And you can work it very hard indeed. The S3 scythes into turns without hesitation, resisting understeer astonishingly well, finding huge grip and remaining poised and adjustable throughout.

Yet you don't have to wring the S3 out to enjoy it. It's an effortless, comfortable long-distance car with an easy poise, excellent refinement and useful flexibility – you can make rapid progress without troubling the lower gears. Initially the steering's variable assistance is obvious, but after an hour or so you hardly notice. There's good brake feel, too – not always a given with VAG products – with precise top-of-the-pedal feel and decent progression. They don't feel any stronger than the Alfa's or Mazda's, but lean on them a bit harder and they really bite, whereas the Brera's pedal goes a bit numb and you're suddenly aware of its inertia. Against expectation, the S3 seems more complete on our more, er, characterful, roads than it did in Germany. I've got it well ahead on points.

Audi claims 5.7sec to 100kph (62mph). If the S3 clocks that time to 60mph it would make it the fastest production hot hatch we have ever tested, bettering the 5.8sec recorded by the Golf R32 and matching the 5.7sec claimed by the Delta Integrale. The S3 does better than that, launching off the line to hit 30mph in 1.8sec and 60mph in just 5.6sec. It takes 13.6sec to get to 100mph, and a glance at its in-gear flexibility shows that it's quick right across the range.

The S3's efficient like the Mazda out of the turns, only more so thanks to its all-wheel drive, and jinkable into the quicker turns like the BMW, only with less risk of spilling into wild oversteer. After three flying laps it seems that the job is done, the last two laps both being 1:30.4. Yes sirree, we have a new and emphatic fastest hot hatch around the West Circuit. Mind, the Mégane R26 deserves a shot. Stay tuned…

Source: http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/cargrouptests/209953/audi_s3.html

Audi RS6 may produce more than 600 HP

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Alfa Brera V6 v Audi S3 v BMW 130i v Mazda 3 MPS

The most telling moment of a group test is rarely reported. It often occurs when the sun is going down and the photographer is artfully composing his final shots (or faffing, as we road testers call it), and it is simply this: which car do you want to take home? As a measure of which is the most desirable car, it's the most honest indicator there is. The one certainty in this test is that whatever the choice, the car isn't going to lack power. All four contenders have around 260bhp, comfortably in excess of the average fast hatch, though the way it is created and deployed is unique to each.

Just landed is the three-door version of the BMW 130i M Sport with the excellent 261bhp Valvetronic straight-six powering the rear wheels. With its flanks broken by two big doors rather than four little ones, it looks cleaner and smaller somehow, while BMW's engineers have taken the opportunity to mildly tweak the suspension and steering. At £26,385 it's a mere £530 less than the five-door version.

Slightly more expensive, at £26,975, and exactly as powerful, the Audi S3 boasts the most potent version of VAG's FSI turbocharged 2-litre in-line four and shares its 261bhp between all four wheels. Yet even with its RS4-style 'goatee' grille and optional pearlescent blue paint, the S3 looks rather plain beside the BMW.

Not quite as plain as the Mazda 3 MPS though, even in revised 'Sports Aero Kit' spec, which brings a bigger tailgate spoiler, smaller door mirrors and, crucially, lowered and stiffened Eibach suspension. Its 2.3-litre turbocharged in-line four cooks up 256bhp and 280lb ft, making it the torquiest engine here, and all that urge is fed through the front wheels only. The MPS is the most potent front-drive hatch on sale and also the least expensive car here at a mere £19,495.

Park it next to the Alfa Romeo, though, and it is practically invisible. Like the original TT, the Brera made the leap from show car to production car largely intact, and from any angle it's bold and distinctive. This is the range-topping 3.2 JTS V6 Q4, with four-wheel drive and a 256bhp quad-cam 3.2-litre V6 in its nose, and in this spec doesn't come cheap – it costs £29,250.

Pre-match favourites are all very well, but the joy of group tests is that they throw up surprises and reveal strengths and weaknesses more readily and with greater definition than a solo drive can. And there were a few surprises along the way here, including a new fastest hot hatch lap at the Bedford Autodrome and a new best hot hatch 0-60 time at Millbrook.

Verdict
Well, if you're on a tight budget and all you want to do is go fast, or if you've got a bank job lined up, the Mazda is the car for you. The MPS offers an awful lot of performance for the money, but not a lot else. That it can actually get almost 260bhp to the road through just the front wheels effectively is extraordinary, but in the final analysis it feels like a hotted-up hire car.

In many respects, the Alfa is its opposite. Extrovert inside and out and powered by an engine that brims with character rather than raw power. The more I drove it, the more I liked it, but it really needs to make its mind up whether it's a sports car or a very capable luxury coupe. It feels closer to the latter, despite the clunky auto, and while it's far from perfect and costs too much, that's true of most indulgences, isn't it?

The Audi S3 and BMW 130i M Sport are way out in front. The Audi is more of a drivers' car than it appears, with keen steering and a poised and adjustable chassis, and after its turns at Millbrook and Bedford there's no questioning its pace and ability. The BMW has more spirit, a superb engine and a wonderful gearshift, and an intrinsically more demanding and engaging layout. It remains a flawed car though, the feel of its chassis occasionally vague, its ride confounded by particularly lumpen B-roads. It's a close call. The Audi is the logical, rational choice, the winner on points, but for all its faults, the BMW is the car most of us want to take home.

Source: http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/cargrouptests/209950/alfa_brera_v6_v_rivals.html

Audi S3

It's an effortless, comfortable long-distance car with an easy poise, excellent refinement and useful flexibility.

Having driven the Audi on its German launch (evo 097), I was expecting a not-dissimilar experience. The S3 isn't a car that causes many second glances but, as you'd expect, it's shot through with quality that's lacking in the Mazda. The fit and finish and sense of integrity are deeply satisfying, the seats are superb and the driving position is excellent.

A few miles in, it's clear that the S3 is a very polished car. Its turbocharged four-cylinder engine is just pipped for outright thrust by the MPS's, but it sounds better, revs more smoothly and boosts from lower revs. The four-wheel-drive system delivers absolute traction with no fight at the wheel, but in contrast to the Mazda and Alfa, the steering gives a good impression of how hard you're working the front end. And you can work it very hard indeed. The S3 scythes into turns without hesitation, resisting understeer astonishingly well, finding huge grip and remaining poised and adjustable throughout.

Yet you don't have to wring the S3 out to enjoy it. It's an effortless, comfortable long-distance car with an easy poise, excellent refinement and useful flexibility – you can make rapid progress without troubling the lower gears. Initially the steering's variable assistance is obvious, but after an hour or so you hardly notice. There's good brake feel, too – not always a given with VAG products – with precise top-of-the-pedal feel and decent progression. They don't feel any stronger than the Alfa's or Mazda's, but lean on them a bit harder and they really bite, whereas the Brera's pedal goes a bit numb and you're suddenly aware of its inertia. Against expectation, the S3 seems more complete on our more, er, characterful, roads than it did in Germany. I've got it well ahead on points.

Audi claims 5.7sec to 100kph (62mph). If the S3 clocks that time to 60mph it would make it the fastest production hot hatch we have ever tested, bettering the 5.8sec recorded by the Golf R32 and matching the 5.7sec claimed by the Delta Integrale. The S3 does better than that, launching off the line to hit 30mph in 1.8sec and 60mph in just 5.6sec. It takes 13.6sec to get to 100mph, and a glance at its in-gear flexibility shows that it's quick right across the range.

The S3's efficient like the Mazda out of the turns, only more so thanks to its all-wheel drive, and jinkable into the quicker turns like the BMW, only with less risk of spilling into wild oversteer. After three flying laps it seems that the job is done, the last two laps both being 1:30.4. Yes sirree, we have a new and emphatic fastest hot hatch around the West Circuit. Mind, the Mégane R26 deserves a shot. Stay tuned…

Source: http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/cargrouptests/209953/audi_s3.html