Quote from deggis :

VAG owns Bentley, to be precise.

Volkswagen Audi Group AG

All a partial subsidary of Porsche SE

Don't believe wiki when it says Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft. :P

but Audi AG is subsidiary of VAG.

Found this some weeks ago. CBS feature "48 hours on the fast track" from Le Mans 1988.

part 1: http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1745136983
part 2: http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1745164889
part 3: http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1745164887

A bit more down to earth than this Audi promo doc (according to the trailer).

Quote from deggis :

but Audi AG is subsidiary of VAG.

Yea, so if Audi own something, Volkswagen do. Volkswagen own Audi, AND Bentley.

It's Volkswagen Audi GROUP. Neither own the other. Appart from Porsche, which owns them both. VAG owns Bugatti, Bentley, Škoda, Seat, itd.

Quote from Primoz :

Appart from Porsche, which owns them both.

Which I find a bit ironic, thinking of all the money German governments have poured into it over the years !

Quote from Primoz :

It's Volkswagen Audi GROUP. Neither own the other. Appart from Porsche, which owns them both. VAG owns Bugatti, Bentley, Škoda, Seat, itd.

Volkswagen OWN Audi... Audi is a subsidary. Volkswagen takes on the role of commercial and 'peoples' car. Audi continues it's marque as an executive hard charger, a complete rival to BMW.

Technically Porsche don't own VAG Completely, they recently bought 75% or so, since VW was the most profitable company in the world for some time but since Porsche created Volkswagen in the first place, i think it's safe to say they are owned by Porsche SE.

Someone with access to the german Handelsregister here so we can and this pointless argument?

Quote from BlueFlame :

My uncles do.

Well, that's 6 if you are including the Bentley victory, which is Audi anyway.

An bentley is owned by ford

Quote from Chrisuu01 :

An bentley is owned by ford

Are you serious? You're thinking Aston Martin (who are no longer owned by Ford anyway afaik) surely

Quote from 5haz :

Only thing Audi about it was the Engine block, RTN (Racing Technology Norfolk) designed and built the chassis, Peter Elleray was the designer.

Obviously the engine was also bored out, because of the larger capacity limit in the Bentley's class.

Obviously noting in common apart from the engine, the funding and the team of engineers and the Audi coupe... Whilst it's nice to dream it was the same car painted green and nominally British, still stunning though, unlike the open top cars.

LeMans has got interesting again because for the first time in the best part of a decade there is now more than one car that is intended to win it, even with the Audi customer teams it was clear that one team was chosen by the factory to win it when there were no works cars running.

Far better LeMans entertainment is the 956 In Car DVD, real cars really racing scarily fast, and Derek Bell and a flat 6 doing the talking rather than a PR department, a must for those that haven't seen it.

It's funded by Audi, therefore Audi, whether you like it or not. Explain why the Audi works teams pulled out that year if it wasn't genuinely Audi? Maybe they had to gift the Bentley's the win by pulling the works teams out, as the privateers weren't capable enough?


And the front indicators on the Porsche 956 are that of a Porsche 944, Audi 80 and VW Passat from the same era.

http://www.motortrend.com/feat ... 4_movie_review/index.html

http://weblogs.variety.com/tho ... 8/11/afi-fest-audi-l.html

Two positive reviews.

Quote from ajp71 :

Obviously noting in common apart from the engine, the funding and the team of engineers and the Audi coupe... Whilst it's nice to dream it was the same car painted green and nominally British, still stunning though, unlike the open top cars.

LeMans has got interesting again because for the first time in the best part of a decade there is now more than one car that is intended to win it, even with the Audi customer teams it was clear that one team was chosen by the factory to win it when there were no works cars running.

Far better LeMans entertainment is the 956 In Car DVD, real cars really racing scarily fast, and Derek Bell and a flat 6 doing the talking rather than a PR department, a must for those that haven't seen it.

The physical car itself was mostly British, not the team.

Lemans is rather grand right now, shame the ACO is forcing everyone to run 3.5l v8s soon, no doubt killing a lot of entries off, why cant they just leave things alone?

Quote from 5haz :

Why cant they just leave things alone?

I really don't know..

Quote from 5haz :

shame the ACO is forcing everyone to run 3.5l v8s soon

3.4L to be precise. Basically it's current P2 engine regs (also allowing 2.0L max 6 cyl turbos) + diesel which is to be 3.7L turbos - I guess they can always fix the balance with air restrictors then

http://www.lemans.org/sport/sp ... 011_moteur_hybride_gb.pdf

Don't know good solution such small V10/V12 would be anyway but forcing max 8 cyl is quite contradictory to the freedom of configurations right now and always in the past...

Quote :

no doubt killing a lot of entries off

Most of the current P1 engine providers already makes P2 engines too. And P2 will use GT2 engines, that's very good solution.

Quote :

why cant they just leave things alone?

Smaller engines are inevitable future trend in motorsport But what I don't get is why also less power? Imagine GT1 car (600 hp, more than current P2) passing prototypes.

GT1 as a class is dead, IIRC GT2 will take over as a single GT category since only the DBR9 and C6.R were racing in the GT1 class. Lack of competition (well, it was competitive, but cmon, 4 cars?) and higher expenses lead it to the death. No problem really, since we have F430 GT2, 911 GT3 RSR, V8 vantage GT2 and Corvettes are being modified to fit into GT2 regulations.

It has not been decided yet.

Motorsport was supposed to be the best of the best, the most powerful engines and the most advanced chassis. All forms of sport (from cars to bikes) seem to be doing everything to make their respective sport slower, much to the dismay of many fans.

Everything should go independant. Obviously, there should be boundaries, but 2/3 years ago, things were much better.

I think we hit a point in the mid/late 80s when most motorsport became too fast/dangerous for the sfatey standards of the day, so leading to the massive effort to reduce spectacle and excitement.

When you are going at speed in any kind of vehicle, you are accepting the fact you could die at any moment. ESPECIALLY in a race car. Obviously safety can only go as far as it can but the safest a car can be is when it's parked up. Racing drivers used to be hero's. They still could be if the racing wasn't hindered by what people deem as 'safety'. There should only be certain limits, like a weight and/or a cylindrical capacity restriction

It was shown on ESPN last Friday and it's available on selected... ehm sites, but also...

...on iTunes, for free!

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/0 ... 24-em-for-free-on-itunes/

EDIT: Apparently only on the US store

Quote from BlueFlame :

When you are going at speed in any kind of vehicle, you are accepting the fact you could die at any moment. ESPECIALLY in a race car. Obviously safety can only go as far as it can but the safest a car can be is when it's parked up. Racing drivers used to be hero's. They still could be if the racing wasn't hindered by what people deem as 'safety'. There should only be certain limits, like a weight and/or a cylindrical capacity restriction

I think its pretty sad that people think this way. Race drivers should not be expected to die racing in order to be hero's. In the past motorsports were extremely dangerous, but that does not mean that they shouldn't be as safe as possible today. There is no reason to put a limit on safety just so you can look up to your "hero" who had to die racing.

Racing is still dangerous today, and always will be because you never know what can go wrong. Craig Jones died last year, Scott Kalitta died last year, plenty of racers still lose their life racing. But it shouldn't have to be this way just so we can call them our hero's, I think that's pretty selfish in fact.

Just finished watching. Absolutely fantastic! Great documentary, loved every piece of it

Quote from DevilDare :

Just finished watching. Absolutely fantastic! Great documentary, loved every piece of it