Quote:
Originally Posted by sugarwood
The entire spirit of Le Mans is that of forging a reputation of bulletproof reliable high performance.
Yet, all I ever hear about Audi is that they are a maintenance nightmare, and that it is suicide to own an Audi out of warranty. What gives?
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Audi is a maintenance nightmare and it is (financial) suicide to own one out of warranty if you can't do a lot of your own work on it. That's why you hear so many complaints about Audi's reliability and cost to own. As much as I loved mine, and I'll never have a car that fast again unless I get a 996 Turbo, I'll never own another Audi as long as I live.
In recent years there have been changes to the top class of prototypes at Le Mans so that most car manufacturers don't even bother to compete. Several years Audi was the only entry in the top class. One year I think there was danger that no one was going to race in the top class until Audi came up with three cars. The trophy doesn't mean much if no one competes for it.
Besides, there's not much interest in road racing in the US anymore and race car technology is so divorced from daily driver car technology that even NASCAR wins don't drive sales of new cars. It wasn't long ago that Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday was a truism. I can remember when car manufacturers seriously competed versions of their street cars in NASCAR and the public loved the competition between manufacturers as part of the show. Now I don't think half the race fans in any version of the sport can name the manufacturers of the main race teams.