2001 Audi Tt Quattro Base Convertible 2-door 1.8l on 2040-cars

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2014 Audi A6, A7 and Q5 TDI diesel models get pricing and fuel economy figures [w/videos]

Last year, Audi announced that it was expanding its lineup of TDI models for 2014 with the Q5, A6 and A7 joining the diesel-burning Q7 and A8 L models already in existence. The Q7 TDI has been out for a few years now and we recently drove the A8 L TDI, but now Audi has released the pricing, performance and fuel economy details for the 2014 Q5 TDI, A6 TDI and the ever-stylish A7 TDI. Down the road, Audi has also promised a TDI version of the next-generation A3 that will debut for 2014.
Until the new A3 TDI shows up, the Q5 will be the most affordable diesel model in Audi's lineup, with a starting price of $46,500 to go with fuel economy estimates of 24 mpg city and 31 mpg highway. The closely related A6 and A7 will get identical fuel economy numbers of 24 city and 38 highway in diesel form, with the A6 TDI starting at $57,500 and the A7 TDI starting at $66,900. In the three new TDI applications, Audi's 3.0-liter V6 produces 240 horsepower and 428 pound-feet of torque, and all models are paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission. Scroll down for videos (stock running footage) and more information on the Q5 TDI, A6 TDI and A7 TDI, all of which go on sale in late summer.

Audi revising own history in light of 'shocking' study of Nazi-era activities

Daimler opened up its archives for research into its Nazi affiliations for one book published in 1990 and another in 1998. The Quandt family behind BMW had its public catharsis in 2007. The ties between the National Socialists and the Porsche and Piech families have almost rendered the Volkswagen Beetle some kind of cult tchotchke of the Third Reich. And it's not just automakers called in for cleansing: Deutsche Bank credit helped build Auschwitz, Hugo Boss made Nazi uniforms, patriarch of food and frozen pizza giant Dr. Oetker volunteered for the Waffen-SS. As one historian said, for any business that wanted to stay in business during the war, "no company was really clean. Everyone had to resort to slave labor when their own workers were fighting at the front."
Audi is the latest to go public with findings from an in-depth study of the Nazi-affiliated past of Auto Union, its predecessor company, and the "Father of Auto Union" Dr. Richard Bruhn, the man who headed it pre- and post-war. Commissioned by Audi, written by Audi's history department head Martin Kukowski and University of Chemnitz historian Rudolf Boch, its findings are just as severe as those already heard so often over the past 20 years. Among other discoveries, the study found that not only did Brun manage the use of more than 3,700 forced labor camp workers from seven SS-run camps, 16,500 forced laborers that didn't live in camps worked in two more factories; Bruhn wanted even more laborers but couldn't get them because of the battlefield situation; and that Auto Union had "moral responsibility" for roughly 4,500 workers killed at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. The study found that disabled workers were routinely sent to the camp and executed there.
Audi works council head Peter Mosch said, "I'm very shocked by the scale of the involvement of the former Auto Union leadership in the system of forced and slave labor. I was not aware of the extent." The company is figuring out how it will respond to the findings, so far working on changing the online profile of Dr. Bruhn on its history pages on Audi sites around the world, and considering stripping Brun's name from the street that bears it and from company offerings like pension plans. If you can read German or can work Google Translate, Wirtschaftswoche has a long piece on the study and its conclusions.

The 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona: What we learned, what we saw

Two days after the flag dropped on the 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona, people are still trying to figure out what it might portend for the rest of the season. In 24 hours, two minutes and 24 seconds, 695 laps were completed by the car that crossed the line first. During that time, 67 cars began the race, 18 of them retired. There was that accident, and a red flag. There were supposedly slower classes beating supposedly faster classes. There were 16 caution periods, including that yellow flag. And then there was The Decision. And Then The Uproar. And then The Reversal.
There was also some pretty good racing, so let's have one last look at the weekend. Oh, and there was that 1964 Ferrari 250 GTO Series II...
If you want to skip the reading bits and go to the photos, there's a high-res gallery of 158 images above and a couple more below. Enjoy.