Audi Climber
Hurtling up a ski jump for new car ad!
A spectacular 1980s television commercial showing an Audi quattro saloon climbing 47 metres of treacherously steep, snow-covered ski jump has just been remade using a new A6 saloon to mark the 25 th Anniversary of quattro.
Fourteen years after rally ace Harald Demuth drove up Finland’s Pitkävuori ski jump in a red Audi 100 CS quattro, Audi engineer Uwe Bleck has just followed suit in the 330bhp V8-powered A6 4.2 quattro. Like its predecessor, the A6 reached a height of 47 metres on a gradient of 37.5 degrees.
For complete authenticity in the 2005 advertisement, the original timber-framed Pitkävuori ski jump, 300 miles north of Helsinki, was used again, despite the fact that it was closed in 1994 and needed extensive repairs before filming could commence.
In first gear, at 4,200rpm and travelling at about 37mph, the A6 drove up the gradient with ease, arriving at the 47-metre-high starting gate nine seconds after take-off. Uwe Bleck repeated this process a total of eleven times for the advertisement.
The toughest test facing the all-Audi team behind the orchestration and filming of the advert was keeping the A6 stationary at the top of the narrow, slippery jump. To achieve this a special ‘roll back safety device’ was built on a steel base plate and fitted to the under-body of the A6. The sledge-like unit prevented the car from sliding back once it had come to a stop, but was not able to pull it.
The only other very minor changes were to the automatic transmission, which was fixed in first gear to prevent the usual momentary power losses during gear changes, and to the wheels, which were fitted with rally-style tyres with six millimetre spikes. Otherwise the A6 4.2 quattro was a completely normal production model.
This new Audi advertisement has been showing on television in mainland Europe since March 5th, and may also be adapted for cinema presentation. It has not yet been decided if Audi UK will integrate the campaign into its 2005 advertising strategy.
Links
www.audiworld.com/news/05/030405/content.shtml
www.fourtitude.com/news/publish/Audi_News/printer_1102.shtml
>> Edited by actech on Tuesday 15th March 15:51
rico said:
And the point is?
Proving the 4x4 capabilities of a car... Remember we don't get much snow, some northern European states have constant snow all winter, being able to get traction in the snow is very very important.
duh...
>> Edited by rico on Tuesday 15th March 17:21
It would give people something else to talk about besides the fact that Audi's quattro thorsen is a generation behind that of Alfa.
Vorsprung durch what again?
agent006 said:
fact that Audi's quattro thorsen is a generation behind that of Alfa
In what way?
In the way that Alfa has a newer type Torsen C differential.
I read this in Auto Motor und Sport who are not exactly unbiased towards German cars in their tests (Italian cars *always* lose on points), so if those guys said it...
The test I read I cannot find on their side, only this one : www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/d/73014
middle of the page
"...im Alfa Crosswagon Q4 bereits seit kurzem erprobt, arbeitet das System mit einem selbstsperrenden mittleren Torsen-C-Differenzial der jüngsten Generation – angeblich das modernste der Welt"
It would be interesting to see a comparison of times up that slope for a modern alfa, a modern quattro and an older quattro that can lock at least the rear diff rather than rely on TC to govern the wheels.
Edit to correct me stats.
>> Edited by agent006 on Wednesday 16th March 15:59
agent006 said:
Yes, but thet torsen-c isn't exactly leaps and bounds further on in technology is it? All it gives over a regular one is a smaller unit, the ability ot vary the default torque split, and it doesn't offer the same distribution range (65-35 vs quattro's 80-20).
It would be interesting to see a comparison of times up that slope for a modern alfa, a modern quattro and an older quattro that can lock at least the rear diff rather than rely on TC to govern the wheels.
Edit to correct me stats.
I hate to play the smart-allick, especially since I'm no engineer, but in the same article I mentioned before, the next sentence goes "Durch Torsen-C landen beim starken Beschleunigen bis zu 80 Prozent der Kraft an den Hinterrädern." Which basically means 'under hard accelleration up to 80% of the power goes to the rear wheels'.
That said, I wouldn't write off the first quattro (the coupé, not the 100 CS) being the first up the slope, because of the differential but also because of the power/weight ratio someone mentioned before.
Mmmh, I wonder what a GTV6 vs 84 Quattro match would do on dry tarmac
errek72 said:
"Durch Torsen-C landen beim starken Beschleunigen bis zu 80 Prozent der Kraft an den Hinterrädern." Which basically means 'under hard accelleration up to 80% of the power goes to the rear wheels'.
Oh, that's odd, i got my 65% from the torsen website. Good to see someone other than Audi's using a proper 4wd system though.
I assume the GTV6 is a new model as i thought all current alfas were satan wheel drive?
Edit: ah, i see, the 35-65% is the default torque balance capability. Can find no mention of peak torque spit for anything other than the torsen-a.
>> Edited by agent006 on Wednesday 16th March 22:46
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