At the risk of another thread swerve, picking up on the points above about similarities between A2s and Elises, I full agree with the thoroughness of the thinking that's gone into much of the A2's execution. It's lovely to see, and the more you look the clearer it becomes why Audi made no money on the project (although you have to wonder whether they went into it with their eyes wide open; they're not fools, and there were probably other objectives than making pots of money).
However, and I'm donning my anti-angry-reply armour now, I think the three cylinder diesel engine is a disaster. It's the worst example of additive engineering that I can think of, exactly the opposite of the "simplify and then add lightness" ethos. What the specification objectives for the engine were, I have no idea, but if you think of the thought process as:
- let's make a three-cylinder diesel engine; that's a nice simplifying step
- oh dear, that now shakes like a mad thing
- I know, let's add not one, but two balancer shafts
- that makes the engine very tall now, having a major impact on the scuttle height and therefore overall vehicle height
- and the weight of the balancer shafts is significant
- and just to reverse-gild the lily, we'll add a dual-mass flywheel, which is heavier than a single mass and has a short in-service life
- invoke the Magnuss Magnussen principle (I've started so I'll finish)
- so we now have a very slightly shorter but very tall, very heavy, maintenance-demanding engine, albeit one that when looked after lasts forever.
So now install that into a lovely lightweight aluminium bodyshell that you've spent gazillions on the development of, and it's all so out of balance you have to stick a ~22kg iron bar inside the rear bumper to even things out. Anyone with any engineering sense about them would have stopped at about step 4 above, at the concept review stage, and said, you know what, this isn't working. A lightweight, better balanced four cylinder diesel, perhaps liberally constructed out of aluminium, natch, would have been a better bet. The tensile forces the block sees (not handled well by ally castings) can be handled by through-bolting, à la Rover K-series. If you're desperate to make it short, either squeeze up a standard in-line four (chain drive for cams, long stroke, narrow bore) or do a very narrow angle V4 like Lancia or lop a cylinder off VW's own V5.
So I can see the integrity of the concept of the whole car in the petrol versions, but it seriously lost its way in the diesels. That said, I do love my TDi 90 so the imperfect package has managed to overcome my purist objections.
That's my fourpence worth.
All the best to y'all. Here's to the approaching summer.
Mike