Quote:
Ron (Houston) said:
Quote:
Grant said:
If they price it low enough (under $80k), then it will definitely take many 997 sales.
I think the price will be closer to $100k though (there it will steal far fewer sales)...
Grant,
I actually heard the U.S. pricing would be anywhere from 120k to 130k 
Makes sense, if you translate the Euro-prices into USD (I guess Audi did not close such a favourable currency hedge deal like PAG
).
If Audi really intends to enter the sportscar market as one of their future strategic market segments, IMO they better should try to create a proprietary R8 Audi sportscar personality instead of just referring to the car as a "Carrera killer" or "German Ferrari". Based on the current Euro-pricelists a nicely equipped R8 comes at 997 TT-money (just have a look at the options list
- I guess they already beat Porsche in this department).
Hence I guess the car won't steal away to much of PAG's bread & butter Carrera business. At the same time pricing and limited production seems to indicate that Audi tries to play the exclusivity game...but in this respect Ferrari & Lambo should have the edge.
I guess the R8 is intended to be a sort of tool to further polish Audi's image as a sporty carmaker and hence gain customers for their bread & butter business (which of course is X-time bigger than the 100k+ sportscar market).
The acquisition of Lambo never achieved this goal, just because Lambo still is seen as a proprietary sportscar brand (and not as just one other brand in the VW-group) - of course for some good reasons considering Lambo's long and proud history as a stand-alone carmaker focussing on "sports cars only" - here we go again
With the current pricing and marketing approach the R8 may become just a nice collector's car for lucky car-nuts who can't resist to add another sportscar to their collection of P's and F's. If Audi really would have intended to develop a longterm strategic market position in the sportscar segment, they should have priced the car @ 85-100k IMO (including the most asked for options) .
Having said that, the car may be excellent in terms of performance and tech features (the first "real" reviews will tell us more), but car history is full of technically excellent cars which suffered from an inappropriate marketing approach
.
, win or lose the badge says Audi not Sttugart or Porsche 
