Welcome to Episode 1 of Middle-Aged Tread, The Autocar Vodcast. The brand-new occasional video series sees two middle-aged men (Matt Prior and James Disdale) talk about cars while trying not to complain too much about things.
This week the chaps are behind the wheel of an Audi A2 - the incredibly clever, lightweight, frugal small car that Audi introduced at the turn of the millennium and which could have gone on to bigger and greater things. Only, ultimately, it didn't.
Why? Watch above as the pair dive deeper into the car's story while getting distracted by Renault Clio V6s, that time Rolls-Royce and Bentley split, and much more besides.
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Absolutely loved the VLOD, please lets have some more ! Look forward to the Honda Insight edition very much .
I owned two new A2 Tdi's in period , the second one was a "Red i" so ninety horsepower, it went on to AmD chip tuning in the very early days and they remapped it for me,which made a small improvement to performance. At that time I was lucky enough to be racing a Porsche Cup Car in the VLN Series on the old Nurburgring , and would often make that journey from the UK to the Nurburgring effortlessly in the A2. Another of my team mates had an A2 Tdi and I remember him being stopped late at night by the German Police having been timed at 136mph on a downhill section ( fortunately he only got a severe telling off ). A very dear friend of mine who recently passed away took over my particular A2 and used it until his recent passing, the car has two hundred thousand miles on the odometer and is still going strong ! They were fantastic machines, never to be underestimated, brilliantly packed , efficient , economical and above all fun to drive.
Interestingly and in line with Matt's thinking I'm now on my forth BMW i3, another great car, but only for short journeys, imagine the aggro of trying to drive an electric car with 160 miles range to the Nurburgring ? Actually it would make quite a fun article for the Magazine, pitching two obsolete , but in period super advanced small saloons, a BMW i3 against an A2 on that very journey ?
The TDI 90 was a riot (I borrowed one for a day), the feeling of zero inertia was remarkable. My own car was a 1.4 SE petrol with the double panel electric glass sunroof. It was simply a spectacularly well conceived and executed car. It was a premium product in every way. In a way it foreshadowed what we'd all be paying for innovative cars in the future. I loved it and I still miss it.