2006 Audi A6 3.2l on 2040-cars

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Audi pits S3 against Ur-Quattro on gravel

If you had to pick a winner between the latest Audi S3 and the original Audi Sport Quattro, which would it be? Both hot hatches pack around 300 horsepower and all-wheel drive, but they're separated by a good thirty years of development.
To find out, Audi took both to the old rally circuit in San Remo. Behind the wheel of the Ur-Quattro they put none other than The Stig himself - no, not the Top Gear test bot, but Stig Blomqvist, the Swedish former rally driver who drove the Quattro to the World Rally Championship in the mid-80s. In the S3 they put someone named Hermann Müller, who as best we can tell was one of Auto Union's original Silver Arrow drivers - but he died in 1975, so it's probably the guy who writes for the Audi magazine. Regardless, the contest was pretty close, so it's worth checking out in the 2:26 video clip below.

YouTube's Super Bowl commercial buzz list dominated by automakers [w/videos]

After Sunday's big game, YouTube will be the place to watch every commercial that you missed when you left your seat for an emergency guac refill or, as we say in Cleveland, took the Browns to the Super Bowl. That makes YouTube the nation's water cooler on Monday, and it's got some preliminary stats to share in the lead up to kickoff.
As you know, Super Bowl advertisers, particularly automakers, like to endlessly tease their big budget commercials in the weeks before the game, many times revealing them outright days in advance. Because of this, YouTube can tell us which commercials have been viewed the most so far, and their top five list is all automakers.
Kaley Cuoco appears to have been a good investment for Toyota, as her ad for the RAV4 has garnered the most YouTube views - six million and counting - among Super Bowl commercials so far. Second place goes to Mercedes-Benz, though not its actual Super Bowl commercial, but rather the teaser for it. You know, the one with Kate Upton and the car washing, which is up to 5.6 million views. Third place is Audi's Prom commercial (3.3M views), fourth goes to Volkswagen's slightly controversial Get In, Get Happy ad (3.3M views), and the fifth and final spot is bookended by the teaser video for Kaley Cuoco's commercial (3.2M views). You can watch all five in order below.

Audi Q7 to be first diesel plug-in from VW group

Lending credence to prior reports, the next Audi Q7 will be available with a diesel-powered, plug-in-hybrid powertrain, Automotive News claims, after speaking to a source in the Volkswagen Group. Both the gas and diesel-powered Q7 will debut in 2015, with the diesel PHV to arrive after that. Unlike Europe's other plug-in diesel, the Volvo V60, Audi's Q7 will be sold on both sides of the Atlantic, the source told AN. You can see a few spy photos of the Q7 PHV above. Audi research and development boss Ulrich Hackenberg previously confirmed that diesel plug-ins would be arriving earlier this year, although it wasn't clear which models the ultra-efficient powertrains would be offered on, or which of those would be offered here in the US. Time to play the waiting game...