Vorsprung durch Technik

“Vorsprung durch Technik, as they say in Germany.” With those words, spoken in a smug English accent by a famous British actor (who is nevertheless not famous enough for me to remember his name), the Audi TV adverts from my youth in the early eighties would end.

I always wondered what Vorsprung durch Technik meant, and the fact that I still remember those TV ads from more than twenty years ago, must say something about their effectiveness at imprinting the brand in one’s mind (or mine, at least).

To get to the point, Sarah and I decided to make our first family car purchase the 2006 Audi A6 Avant, a practical and nippy estate in the 3.2 FSI petrol engine version.

We’d previously looked at the Mercedes E class estate, as well as the Volvo V70 and XC70. BMW was briefly considered, too, until it became apparent that they didn’t have an estate in their fleet that would really appeal to us.

The Mercedes was nice, but overpriced. The marketing materials were rather revolting, too, in their attempt to make one feel like a virulent, omnipotent man-beast, who will be the envy of all past whom he races, as they turn their heads in awe of the sound of the roaring engine and noisy exhaust. Of course, what they don’t tell you that all those turning heads are actually thinking, “What a prick!”

The discrepancy between how Mercedes would like you to think of yourself (once again, a man admired and respected by men, whilst desired by women for sex and marriage) and the harsh, unforgiving reality (aggressive, unhealthy, low-browed, knuckle-dragging, chain-smoking, beer-swilling Amsterdam taxi-drivers) is quite comical.

Like I said, the car itself was nice — very cool, even — but the car has an image and attracts people who want to be associated with it. Similarly, many people who don’t own one view people who do in a particular light. Now, I don’t particularly care about this aspect of the car (after all, I don’t feel the need to excuse myself to everyone), but I do think their cars are consequently overpriced.

The Volvo was next. (You see? I told you I didn’t care about the image). I was almost sold on the XC70, even though it was a far cry in luxury terms from the Mercedes E Class, but I ultimately balked at the user interface of the controls. The navigation system’s LCD screen pops up out of the dashboard, giving poor contrast when driving in bright light. Its buttons for entering a destination address are to be found only on the steering wheel, which I’m sure the car’s designers considered very safe, as the driver doesn’t have to take his hands off the wheel. However, what about the passenger? It’s even safer to allow the passenger to do the data entry. With enough little details like that, you ultimately start to lose interest. The car rode very well, but an irritating user interface would ruin the experience.

We were going to look at the Subaru Outback, but we never made it that far. After a trip to the Audi dealer last week that involved test-driving the A6, we were pretty sure we’d found our car. I’ve spent the last week reading Audi’s own brochures, as well as independent reviews and crash test results (both the American and European). People are universally impressed with the A6’s physical performance, as well as its MMI interface to the on-board computer. Everything is simple to use and — that favourite word in software — intuitive. The crash tests rate it an exceptionally safe car in the event of a major impact, safer even than Volvo’s latest cars (and Volvo is the company with the lasting reputation for safety in cars).

After working my way down the list of options, I went in to the dealer on Tuesday and obtained a price estimate for an A6 Avant. Sarah and I went back today to ask some final questions and place the order.

The car will be manufactured in week 51 of this year, but won’t be registered in The Netherlands until 2006. In this country, it’s the registration paperwork — not the build date — that people look at when determining the age of the car. Crazy, but true.

Anyway, we should be able to pick the car up some time in the second half of January, which suits us very well. We even took home a set of car manuals so we can start to figure out how all the features work. I’ll be lucky if I’ve finished reading it all by the end of January.

Oh, Vorsprung durch Technik means ‘advantage by technology’, by the way. It’s very similar in Dutch: voorsprong door techniek.