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A1 rolls at public demo

Red faces for Audi as publicity stunt goes wrong.

Audi A1

24th May 2010

The faces among Audi's crack driving team matched the colour of this rather worse for wear A1 this weekend.

The car was being driven up and down a specially-constructed half pipe in the Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels as part of the build up to the car's public launch.

But instead of demonstrating the car’s skateboard-like handling and fun-to-drive character, one of Audi’s drivers got carried away and rolled the MINI-rivalling hatch onto its roof. The good news is, nobody was hurt, and the car barely damaged.

Driver and passenger were quickly freed after the car was pushed back onto its wheels.

According to Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, Audi was keen that photographers didn’t take pictures of the stricken car. But a few snaps have leaked out of the innocuous event.

And while the crash is a slight annoyance for Audi as the build-up to the car’s arrival in showrooms begins, very few A1s are likely to be subjected to the full Tony Hawks X Games treatment when the car arrives here in late 2010.

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10 Comments

Homer rides again

beautiful, just beautiful.
you have to laugh

By IlMostro on 24 May, 2010, 9:15pm

Vorsprung DORK technik!

Yeah I bet Audi are gutted, rightly so, they are so up their own arses about how great they are. I think this shows their new star is just an average small car, nothing special. You could have gone up, down and sideways in the new Fiesta and wouldn't have rolled it. Audi was at it's best 5yrs ago since then everything aside the R8 has been a backwards step. Back to the drawing board then!

By Focus_your_mind on 25 May, 2010, 10:10am

Publicity

The lengths people will go to for a bit of publicity! I think this car is going to be a bit of a dog. Why oh why are Audi going down the BMW route and devaluing a great brand with crappy small models?

Surely this is just a panic move. The marketing department have told the board that they need to offer a small model in the range because that is what eveybody else is doing.

By oliver144 on 26 May, 2010, 9:23pm

Marketing department Fail!

hahaha! did they even bother to calculate the physics of that ramp? I think just about anything with 4 wheels would have flipped on it.

By robertyu1 on 27 May, 2010, 7:28am

Mercedes

Mercedes had a more serious problem, they only needed an imaginary moose to make their A class play dead! People still bought them because of the manufacturer name and the fact they were pretty good cars.
No doubt, there are many people who may or may not see this accident, and to be honest not many people are going to 'try this at home', the car will still sell because people want German engineering and the four rings on the grille.
Maybe they were really showing how well finished the underside was, and proving if you go playing on a half-pipe you will walk away lol

By brucegreig01 on 27 May, 2010, 10:14am

MINI

See what happens when they try and take MINI on at their own game.... does anyone else remember the MINI ad campaign with the MINI Cooper poised at the top of a half-pipe? Next they will be trying (and no doubt failing) to take on the viral MINI go-kart race video. :-)

By AlphaAsh on 27 May, 2010, 10:25am

So there is a god after all?

Don't you just love it when silly, cynical PR people who think they can make us believe we need to buy this nonsense end up being the ones on whom the joke is? I do.

By jcrowley012 on 27 May, 2010, 9:12pm

Ha

Well at least it shows us the construction of the under body. They can't complain about that LOL. Hope the seats aren't as uncomfortable as the A3!

By aarontp on 31 May, 2010, 7:59am

Rediculous

And how often is it going to be driven up a steep curve? Don't be rediculous AE

By bigbazza on 1 June, 2010, 3:56pm

Meanwhile...

"Cor DM, this skateboarding lark isn't as easy as it looks..."

By sgtgrash on 10 June, 2010, 12:21pm

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Audi A1
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