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Today is Audi S1 day, remember

Audi S1

This looks good!

It’s the Audi S1. See, BMW, someone is not too afraid to bring back a mismatching iconic nameplate. Anyway, official details of the S1 Sportback, emphasis on the Sportback (ie. five-door), will be coming your way later today. Until then here’s a series of leaked images.

Remember, it’s got a 2.0 litre engine, a 6-speed manual gearbox and it’s small and nimble. What’s not to like?

How long until the street version of the Volkswagen Polo R WRC hits showrooms?

[Source: autofilou | Thanks to Tim for the tip]

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Audi

Imagine if the next Audi A4 looked this good

Audi A4 rendering

Master pixel manipulator Theophilus Chin has turned his attention to the Audi Sport Quattro and reimagined into a volume selling A4 saloon.

Wouldn’t it be cool if Audi said, “Hey Theo, that looks great! And we’re going to build it. Here’s a cheque for many thousands of Euros to say thanks. Good job!”

[Source: Theophilus Chin]

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2014 Bathurst 12 Hour photo gallery: Qualifying

2014 Bathurst 12 Hour

Here’s your pick of photos from today’s qualifying for the 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour race. We start with this great image above of the MARC Focus GTC. What the hell is a Focus GTC you ask?

There’s three of them entered in the race and they’re a purpose-built creations powered by a 500hp 5.0 litre V8 sending power to the rear wheels. Weighing in at 1250kg their best lap times during quali have been in the 2:15 bracket. You can learn more about them HERE and HERE.

Of course, we’ve got more for you than Frankenstein Focuses, so check ’em all out after the break.

[Pics: Joel Strickland Photographics]

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Audi Bathurst 12 Hour Lamborghini Video

More onboard action from the Bathurst 12 Hour

David Russell, Lamborghini Gallardo GT3

Keen for some more onboard action to get you ready for tomorrow’s Bathurst 12 Hour race. Here’s a couple of laps from inside the #23 Lamborghini Gallardo with David Russell posting what was a GT lap record (2:05.9s) and also Laurens Vanthoor driving the #3 Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS.

Factory Porsche driver Patrick Long, who is racing in the Class B entered #12 911 Carrera Cup car, drops in to give his impressions after his first visit to Bathurst.

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2014 Bathurst 12 Hour photo gallery: Friday practice

2014 Bathurst 12 Hour

Defending champions Erebus Motorsport have signaled their intentions with the #1 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 setting the fastest time in practice at the 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour today. With Maro Engel behind the wheel his time of 2:04.4533 established a new lap record for a tintop car around Mount Panorama.

Conditions were hot late in the afternoon but as Practice 4 drew to a close the temperature dropped a few degrees and with more rubber on the resurfaced circuit times began to tumble. Engel posted his time with 10 minutes remaining in Practice 4. Around the same time the second Erebus car also bettered the old record when the #63 SLS AMG GT3 lapped in 2:05.3339.

Earlier in the day the Class B #23 Lamborghini Gallardo showed a clean pair of heels with David Russell setting a new GT benchmark of 2:05.9397. Of course, Russell’s record didn’t last the day and with more hot weather forecast for the rest of the weekend we expect tomorrow morning’s open qualifying session could yet see the fastest time of the day, traffic permitting.

There will be two open quali sessions tomorrow with a final 15 minute session immediately after Quali 2 open to Class A cars only.

After the break you can see a gallery of images from today and yesterday’s pre-race preparations with thanks to Joel Strickland Photographics. Use the links below to check out the official lap times from all four practice sessions.

2014 Bathurst 12 Hour – Friday practice lap times
Practice 1 | Practice 2 | Practice 3 | Practice 4

[Pics: Joel Strickland Photographics]

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Audi

Near naked 2014 Audi TT prototype spied

2014 Audi TT prototype

The public reveal of the next-gen Audi TT is scheduled for the Geneva Motor Show in March. This doesn’t leave much time for Audi to be out and about testing prototypes, but that’s exactly what they’re doing.

As you can see this near naked TT looks pretty much like the first two generations, with a more refined bodystyle following on from the current model’s approach.

Audi has already showed us inside the TT, with its nifty TFT dash display doing away with a centre console screen. And now we’ve got a pretty good handle on what the outside looks like too.

[Source: WCF | Pic: Automedia]

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Best ever field to take on 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour

2014 Bathurst 12 hour

Just a a couple of days from this weekend’s 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour race now is a good time to cast an eye over the official entry list. And what an entry list it is too!

There’s six classes in all, with the overall race winner expected to come from the 14-strong field of Class A (GT3 Outright) competitors. The #1 Erebus Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 is back to defend its 2013 crown. Only Bernd Schneider returns for driving duties with Erebus, he will be joined by Maro Engel and Nico Bastian. Erebus will run a second SLS AMG GT3 (#63) to be crewed by Will Davison, Jack LeBrocq and Greg Crick.

Audi will have four representatives in Class A headlined by the #3 Phoenix Racing entry of Rahel Frey, René Rast and Laurens Vanthoor. Former winner Christopher Mies joins Marc Cini in his #9 R8 LMS Ultra along with Mark Eddy. The #5 Audi will be shared among a strong local crew of Jason Bright, Warren Luff, Rod Salmon and Liam Talbot. United Autosport rounds out Audi’s GT3 entrants in the #25 car driven by Marcus Winkelhock, Mark Patterson and Eric Lux.

Ferrari will be represented for the third year in a row by the #33 Clearwater Racing entry of Mok Weng Sun, Craig Baird and Matt Griffin. They’ve finished the race in third (2012) and second (2013) so will be hoping for another year of progression up the podium. The #88 Maranello Motorsport 458 GT3 will again attract attention with this year’s line up consisting of Craig Lowndes, John Bowe, Mika Salo and Peter Edwards.

Tony Quinn’s diversity in exotic racing ownership has extended to a McLaren 12C GT3 (#37) and he’ll be making that car’s debut in the Bathurst 12 hour with his son Klark and Andrew Kirkaldy.

Also making its B12hr debut is the #32 Nismo-backed Nissan GTR to be driven by Rick Kelly, Katsumasa Cyio, Alex Buncombe and Wolfgang Reip.

Class B (GT3) is dominated by Porsche 911s, with 10 of the 14 entries coming from Stuttgart. These cars are older-spec GT3 machines and two Audi R8s and a pair of Lamborghini Gallardos round out the category.

The stand out crew here is the #12 McElrea Racing 997 GT3 Cup (2012) driven by well-established racers Patrick Long, Alex Davison and David Calvert-Jones. A touch of Hollywood is represented by Eric Bana who is sharing the #99 Gallardo with mates Peter Hill and Simon Middleton.

A small field of three forms the Class C (GT4) field, including a Ginetta G50, a Lotus Exige Cup R and a Lotus Exige S.

Class D (Invitational 3001cc+) is headlined by the #7 Dean Herridge Subaru WRX STi, which will face stiff competition from a mixed bag of makes and models including a BMW 335i, a BMW E46 GTR, a BMW E92 M3, a Daytona Coupe and a pair of Seat Leon Supercopas.

Class E (Invitational up to 3000cc) consists of three Fiat Abarths, so if nothing else the Italian manufacturer is assured of a class win! Similarly, Class I (Invitational, non-production) is made of up of three Ford Focus GTCs and will see Grant Denyer at the wheel of the #70 entry.

All going well there’ll be 54 cars on the starting grid on Sunday morning, with the late withdrawal of the Vita4One Racing BMW team being the only downer, in what shapes as the most exciting and competitive Bathurst 12 Hour race yet.

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Audi

Audi S1 to be launched on 12 February

2014 Audi S1 teaser

Audi has released a couple of teaser videos to YouTube in recent days announcing the arrival of an all-new model and is playing the deliberately coy approach of the car being a mystery.

All they have told us, in words, is that the car will be launched in South Africa next week, on 12 February, and that the model name includes a number (so it’s not the new TT).

The second teaser video gives us some visual clues and with some still shots and some investigation via Photoshop we reckon it’s pretty clear the new car is going to be the S1, the go fast version of the A1.

The two-door body style and mirror shape in the above pic look A1-based and inside we see the car has a 6-speed manual transmission and bright yellow seat backs with “quattro” badging. Very similar to the limited edition A1 quattro released in 2011, itself based on the 2011 A1 clubsport Wörthersee special.

Recent speculation suggests the S1 will feature a 170kW 2.0 TFSI engine, quattro all-wheel drive system and a manual transmission. See, we can join dots too!

You can watch the reveal next week via Audi MediaTV. Bring it on.

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Audi

Because Nogaro Blue

Audi RS4 Avant Nogaro selection

If you’re an Audi fan the colour Nogaro Blue will do exciting things to your nether regions. Not least because it was the hero colour of the fearsome RS2 estate, Audi’s first ever RS model, but also because it’s just a shit hot colour.

For some reason Audi stopped offering the colour. Perhaps so they could charge more to put some pretty sparkles in the paint instead. Sprint Blue, a metallic colour, became Audi’s S/RS hue of choice for a while, but it’s not got the purity of Nogaro Blue. The last time we saw Noggy Blue in Australia was on the first-gen S3 and S4 models, around 10 years ago now.

The RS2 celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and to mark the occasion Audi will be launching an RS4 Avant Nogaro selection at the Geneva Motor Show next month. As the name suggests the car will be painted in Nogaro Blue and will include blue interior highlights. We could live without the splashes of blue inside the car to be honest, but they’re a small price to pay for bringing one of the world’s best exterior colours back to life.

It’s the perfect birthday present for one of the motoring world’s most underrated cars. Bravo Audi, bravo!

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Super Bowl XLVIII ad watch

Volkswagen Super Bowl XLVII TVC

In case you’ve missed it there’s a big game of football on tonight. And we don’t mean the Man City v Chelsea game either. It’s American football and, of course, it’s the Super Bowl.

That means all the big wig advertising agencies have been locked away in rooms for months trying to come up with something clever and memorable. We’ve taken a look at the motoring-related TVCs and we’re sorry to say the standards from the big auto makers has slipped.

Most of these ads are pretty lame. Subaru should just be embarrassed. Audi, Kia and Volkswagen can perhaps keep their heads above water for producing moderately entertaining ads, but the rest are just shit.

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Audi

Audi A3 Sedan – Australian pricing & specs

Audi A3 sedan

Audi Australia has rolled out the new A3 sedan across its dealerships and if you’re interested in this car we suggest you pop along and check it out because they do look really good.

Surprisingly, Audi says the sedan shares no body panels with its Sportback stablemate. That would stand to reason given Audi’s attention to detail these days, even on its volume models like the A3.

At launch we’ll have three engine choices to choose from in the three-box A3. A 1.4 TFSI (103kW250Nm) with cylinder-on-demand kicks off the range, while a 1.8 TFSI (132kW/250Nm) and 2.0 TDI (110kW/320Nm) fill the middle of the range. Until the S3 sedan arrives in Australia—it’s not too far away either—the 1.8 TFSI quattro tops off the A3 sedan line up.

List pricing starts at $39,800 for the 1.4 TFSI and goes up to $47,800 for the 1.8 TFSI quattro. A series of option packages are also available and information on these and the full pricing can be seen after the break.

You get the feeling Audi thinks the A3 sedan will do quite well. We wonder if interest and novelty value will translate into sales. Certainly, Andrew Doyle, Audi Australia MD, isn’t hiding his expectations.

“The all-new A3 Sedan is very impressive. It looks powerful on the road, yet sips fuel frugally,” Doyle said. “It offers luxury appointments inside and out, yet it has the sharpest pricing in its segment. Judging by early interest in this new model, we are very confident of its success.”

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Volkswagen to make 283kW Golf R Evo

Volkswagen Mk7 Golf R

Volkswagen’s assault on the upper end of the hot hatch segment has become clearer after word Wolfsburg is planning a more powerful and lighter Golf R model, expected to carry the model designation “Evo”.

The current EA888 2.0 litre engine will be developed and modified with a new cylinder head and induction system to produce at least 283kW. The Golf R Evo will be available exclusively with a 6-speed DSG transmission and Haldex all-wheel drive system. It has a target weight of sub-1400kg.

We can also expect Audi to jump on this bandwagon, too, in the guise of an S3 Plus model featuring the same drivetrain.

This news has emerged from several sources who were at the Detroit Auto Show and spoke to VW’s Franz Eichler, the man poached from Mercedes who oversaw development of the 265kW 2.0 litre four-pot found in the A45 AMG.

[Source: Autocar]