Audi Q7 (4L) 2005-2015

[Ferrer]

It did. There are lots of Audi fans in my surrounding, and one of them said: "That would have been an extraordinary car. Why are all car makers shy of building something special?" He hit the nail on the head. Audi just had not the balls to build such a car. Nobody can tell me that the finanicial crisis was the only reason for killing the project. They just feared it could be not as sucessful as a "normal" petrol supercar.

You see, I've spotted the flaw in your argument.

[Commodore GS/E]

You see, I've spotted the flaw in your argument.

Noooooo!

However... you have your opinion, i have mine. And i think it's an engineering marvel (despite a few weaknesses )

[LeonOfTheDead]

I think a diesel R8 would have a major flaw. The larger and the more performance oriented a diesel engine is the more it will consume at emit.
You don't say...

What I mean is that diesel engines at the moment were and are being developed with two things in mind. Mileage and sales. Sales aside, in order to get a good mileage we all know we'll loose some performance.
Once the sales were established we got more and more performance, while mileage in many cases was dropping a little (also because of heavier and larger cars, but that's not the sole problem).
To get a lot of performance, you just have to forget about mileage as you know it from your old A4 1.9 TDI from the nineties, and that's the point. People still believe diesel engines are magic, high mileage and tons of torque, for free, really!
It will take a while before diesel engines could really be considered as a competitor of petrol engines by Joe A.
At the moment they are like two different things, sort of like people thinking about hybrids as gizmos on wheels.

Adopting this engine on the Q7 helps to hide many of its aspects behind the SUV's stigmas, like weight an inexistent aerodynamics, while on the other hand thier are starting to use large diesel engines and collecting more and more datas.
Sooner or later we'll have an high performance diesel car, just people need to be prepared for that first, little by little.

[Yeahone]

Wow, lots of discussion in here. (only because I revived this thread with some images)

As it was said a lot times before, these cars are built for one purpose: luxury.
The pictures I put into post #23 explain pretty well who is the target group the manufacturers had in mind when they concepted those vehicles.
Plowing through the sand in places like Abu Dhabi and hoping not to get stuck in it or get hitten by a sandstorm. And like you all know, this needs a lot of torque

Anyway, like Commodore GS/E said it is a matter of taste and people who can afford cars of this type don't have to care about political correctness...

[LeonOfTheDead]

I believe a 4.2 V8 engine was fairly enough for whatever purpose, and so would have been the 4.2 TDi as well.

[Yeahone]

But not for sheiks

Some more of luxury: Q7 V12 TDI Coastline Concept with yacht interior and bling bling rims...

[Ferrer]

More pictures from the car that's bigger than the average European town #26