Just got this e-mail from one of the local Audi chapter guys. Very interesting. Anybody else know anything?? April? Ming2.7T??

When trying to check out ABT (their site is useless by the way) I ended up talking to a someone at Champion Motorsports (the US ABT rep) who told me something interesting. Champion is currently in the process of coming up with a line of upgrades for Audi's. Their hope is to create performance upgrades that even dealers will market. He was also saying that they want to
warranty everything your dealer won't in regards to those upgrades. In a way the more he talked about what they were wanting to do sounded like a
possible future deal like Mercedes has with AMG.

Now that would be ultimate!! He said to check back early next year. Whether it comes true or not?? Who knows..

 

We can only hope.

 

Audi Luxembourg has done exactely what you're talking about in Luxembourg. If you check www.autoshop.lu , you will see that it's the website of "Autosdiffusion M. Losch". This is the biggest official Audi garage in Luxembourg. Under the section Audi tuning, you can see that
"Tous les articles repris sur le site www.abt-sportsline.de peuvent être obtenus auprès de votre concessionnaire".
That's french but it means that all the ABT articles can be obtained and fitted on your Audi.

I don't know when that will be true for you to in the states but for us in Europe, this just became true.

I'm a bit surprised when you say that you didn't find info on the ABT website. It might be worth checking the link to the german website below.

Regards,

Enricos<ul><li><a href="http://www.abt-sportsline.de/start/index.php?sprache=e&amp;flash=ok&amp;webid=2">ABT Sportsline</a></li></ul>

 

Hope your rumor mill is true. I sent them an email last week asking if they are gonna use one of the new S4's for World Challenge next year. No answer yet.

 

AMG is an in-house tuner. Dinan is not. Abt and Champion are more likley to be like Dinan, offering upgrades through certain dealers, and using an aftermarket warranty to underwrite the parts/mods.

Cars will need to pass a basic inspection of downstream and upstream parts, to make sure there isn't a weak link. Parts can only be installed by the authorized dealers. The warranty is honoured through those dealers only, and only if no unauthorized mods have been carried out. Not all mods offered by the tuner, will be covered under the warranty.

Turbo engines will most likley be few and far between, so chip gains will be much smaller.

I don't know how much emphasis they will put on modding now obsolete engines. German companies tend to be very current, so it will be up to Champion to fill in the gaps if they wish. Of course the advantage is that they won't have to offer a warranty. They will have to offer a compelling reason why to buy their/Abt's software, when there are plenty of other choices.

European engine coding does not translate at all to North American cars. When AMS was the sole importer of Abt, AMS would have to basically chuck everything, and then rewrite the code to match Abt's power curves. Abt has never written code for North American cars. That means Champion will have to do it, or farm it back out to AMS.

Have you looked at prices of Dinan or AMG parts? For that matter, Abt parts before tacking on the cost of a dealer warranty?

These are all things AMS considered in the past. Abt was not interested in helping either financially or with technical help. Success will rest on Champion's shoulders.

 

AMG and Mercedes saw the importance of the US markets, and tailored toys for us, (US), and it has paid off handsomely for them both. If Audi truly wants to compete for the luxo-sport market, (as I believe they do, offering the new LeMans as a point), then I think it boils down to designating a team to do the research and get the goods to market. IMHO, at least.

 

performance machines that were splashed across the front pages of every car magazine. Then they started collaborating with Mercedes. Finally Mercedes bought them out, since they didn't have a perfomance division.

The thing is that Audi already has Quattro GmbH for creating S and RS cars (along with farming out portions of the projects to Cosworth), and offers or is about to offer both S line and Votex kits for body and wheels (remember that with the different longer bumpers here in many cases, body kits from Europe don't fit - so they have to make a different bumper for this market - and they use PUR, and molds aren't cheap).

Where does Abt and Champion fit into the official Audi or AoA picture? Champion may be trying to set themselves apart and offer some custom touches you can't get here, but I don't know how much room there will be for growth, squeezed as they will be with S, RS, S-Line, and Votex options. Sure, there will be a few folks ready to pay $800 for another 10 or 15 HP, but that is going to be a small market. Audi folks tend to be frugal, they may end up with the local tuner who charges far less.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to have that option, but rather that AoA has taken steps in recent years to marginalize such offerings to niche cars much like what AMG used to offer before they went mainstream.

 

All good points. But, who in the US has more name recgonition among the rank and file, Quattro Gmbh, or Champion? I agree it is not the rank and file that will be buying Audi parts, but that has to figure in there somewhere, donchya think? At any rate, it will be interesting to follow the developments.

 

Not sure how it will all play, since Champion has the means to create a buzz here, while Abt will lend a European flavour to the endeavour.

In the end, I don't think they will get official acceptance from AoA or VAG like AMG does with Mercedes (that spot is taken), but they may be able to carve out a niche of high end custom tuned cars for individual customers much like AMG, Strosek, and other once, or still offer. If they can get the nod from AoA, to do something like Dinan has done with BMW, then so much the better.

If they can keep costs down on popular parts, then they might be able to compete with home grown tuners. The trick is to not get greedy. Abt has built a spectacular showroom in Germany (read very $$$), is spending gobs on racing, and the less than favourable Euro to dollar ratio means they are going to have to look at pricing very carefully (even if they don't write the software for North America, they still charge a fee for name). Even prior to the latest currency adjustment, prices for Abt products were much higher than most of the market. For some time, AMS had held off passing along the rising costs to the consumer, knowing they were already in the premium end of pricing.

If Champion can get a deal going like what Dinan has worked out with BMW, using certain dealers, for certain parts, using an aftermarket underwriter, then that will be a huge step for everyone. It's a massive undertaking. I hope they make it.

 

...and I've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting...
I learn of this beginning of 2004, and it was supposed to be in place by Summer of 2004, now it's Spring of 2005...I don't see this happening anytime soon. But I keep on hoping it does.