The content of this site requires the most recent version of the Adobe Flash Player and a browser with JavaScript enabled.

Get Flash | Enter Site

Truth in The Journalist

Art Cards:
“January 14, 2008”

“ An Interview with David E. Davis, Jr.”

 “Dean of Automotive Journalists”

“Founder, Winding Road Magazine”

“A Tennessee Drive”

“A Blinding downpour”

“ I was having a dinner one night…”

You can find David E. Davis, Jr. out on the roads, test-driving cars.
Or inside, writing about test-driving cars.


COPY:
My perception of Audi is, Audi is now on a roll, and I would say that the time now has come, you’re right on the cusp.

There’s a German heritage in automobiles that Audi benefits from.  There’s an awful lot of genius that is unique to Audi.  I like to say again and again about German cards – drive all day long on a tank of gas absolutely as fast as they can go.  And that’s something that the Japanese can’t claim, and it’s something that the Americans will never be able to claim – it makes for a very special car.  That’s something that the other guys can’t say.

We did a driving trip in Tennessee with half a dozen luxury sedans.  Most of the guys who were on the trip would confess that they felt some relief to get out of the bmw, to get out of the Mercedes that we had and get into the Audi.  There hasn’t been an attempt with Mercedes Benz and bmw to get just as much stuff in the car as humanly possible.  The more switched the better.  Audi takes away an awful lot of the stuff that’s troublesome about expensive luxury cars.  And it just gives you something special without asking too much of you.  

I was having dinner one night with Robert (inaudible) who I think is the best writer on automotive design in our business and about a third of the way into the dinner he casually mentioned that he had driven up in an R8 I half stood up involuntarily and said YOU ARE? And looked over his head and looked out the window and found the R8 out there in the parking lot and it was very difficult not to just put my napkin down on my chair and go outside and take a look and I’ve been looking at R8’s ever since the first one arrived in the united states.  

Anybody who can be standing outside somewhere and hear one go buy accelerating hard in the lower gears….and not be, just totally energized….there is a serious character flaw in that person.

I think about my week with the RS4 a lot.  I think about the way the car sounded, I think about the way the car felt and there was one morning where we were in a blinding downpour on a tiny, high crowned winding road that was kind of deteriorated, and you look at the amount of rain that was coming down and you look at the condition of the pavement and I don’t recall that I ever had any question that the car would maintain it’s trajectory as I had established it through this turn and down into the next turn.  The car worked as an extension of me and my experience and in that sense it was perfect.

And there a lot of cars that will get you there, but, no magic.  To the best of my knowledge, nobody in the luxury category is building anything quite like Audi.

You’re riding a wave that the other guys haven’t caught yet.