2007 Audi A4 Quattro Base Sedan 4-door 2.0l on 2040-cars

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2015 Audi S3 configurator goes live with all the black and silver paint you've hoped for

It has already been nearly a year since we completed our First Drive of the premium pocket rocket Audi S3, with official pricing for the car detailed earlier this summer. Those are facts, but facts won't help you while away your lunchtime in blissful, car-dreaming reverie, will they?
No, for help with imagining just exactly the kind of Audi S3 that you'd like to put in your garage, the freshly launched configurator is just the thing.
Every 2015 Audi S3 will come with 2.0T power under the hood - to the tune of 292 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque. The most basic Premium Plus trim (an interesting renaming of "entry level" we'll grant you) starts at $41,100 before destination, while the higher-content Prestige asks $47,000. The extra six grand buys you full LED lighting, tri-zone climate control, S model appearance upgrades like quad exhaust tips and a more advanced infotainment suite with Bang & Olufsen sound.

Audi readying diesel PHEV models for US and Europe

With the racing pedigree provided by the Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the German king of Le Mans is capitalizing on the connection between its road cars and race cars at every opportunity. Maybe there's an entire range of Le Mans Editions for the automakers diesel-hybrid offerings, with perhaps Tom Kristensen acting as the brand's spokesperson for the technology in Europe. You'd be wrong, though, because despite the R18's overwhelming successes in endurance racing, Audi the road-car manufacturer doesn't offer a single diesel-hybrid production car.
This factoid will hopefully be as short lived as it is disappointing, though, as a diesel-electric is around the corner, according to the brand's tech boss, Ulrich Hackenberg. In fact, it gets better than a mere diesel-hybrid; it will be a plug-in diesel-hybrid, only the second to hit the market, alongside the European-market Volvo V60.
According to Hackenberg, the new tech will be the result of a marriage between the brand's well-received 3.0-liter, TDI V6 with an electric motor. The next-generation Audi Q7 (shown above) will be the initial recipient, confirming previous reports that claimed a PHEV TDI could come to the next-gen CUV. Its MLB architecture, meanwhile, would allow the plug-in-hybrid-diesel powertrain to be fitted easily enough to the A8 luxury sedan. While the new Q7 should hit the market at some point in 2015, it's unclear when the PHEV TDI model could see the light of day.

Audi renders crossover concept for Detroit, is it the Q1?

Judging by the direction Audi is taking with recent concept vehicles, the forthcoming Audi Q1 crossover - confirmed for production in 2016 - should be an exciting little crossover. Last year, the automaker revealed the Crosslane Coupe Concept, and now it has announced it will reveal a new CUV concept at the Detroit Auto Show next month.
Teased in a trio of sketches, Audi says this unnamed concept is designed with a shooting brake style, which to us it makes it look like a combination of an Audi Allroad and a three-door A3. Little information is available on this concept, but it is about seven inches shorter than the Q3 and Audi notes that it will possess "design elements that are typical of e-tron models," which suggests some sort of powertrain electrification. There's still about a month before the Detroit show kicks off, but until then you can check out the sketches and press release (posted below) that Audi has provided.