The Audi Q7 V12 TDI is set to launch (but not here in the U.S.), and it’s just the thing to give that annoying neighbor with his fancy VW Touareg V10 TDI a debilitating inferiority complex. 500 horsepower and approximately enough torque to counter-rotate the Earth (758 lb-ft) come standard on Audi’s diesel monster. 21-inch wheels mask carbon ceramic brakes, LED running lamps help light the way, and the interior is a festival of dead cow, TV screens, and Alcantara, all trimmed neatly in aluminum and carbon fiber. If we were, say, Russian gangsters, we’d totally be driving one of these. (Except Neff, who would undoubtedly, stubbornly continue rolling in the Alero.) In conjunction with the launch, Audi dumped a slew of new pictures on its media site, so here they are. Click away.

The 2009 Audi A4 sedan and Avant will be hitting lots later this year, and before dealers can begin taking orders in September, they’ve got to let people know what it’ll cost to get behind the wheel of the thoroughly revised entry-level Audi.

Prices for the sedan start at $32,700, equipped with the all-new 2.0-liter TFSI four that sends 211 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque through the front wheels. Quattro will be available on the four-banger, along with Audi’s six-seed Tiptronic transmission. Buyers that opt for the Avant will have to shell out $34,500 for the added hatch, extra cargo room and standard Quattro all-wheel-drive. If you choose the 3.2-liter FSI V6, the six-speed manumatic is standard, along with the Quattro system.

Dealers will have a limited supply of A4 sedans and wagons available for test-drives later this month and customer deliveries should begin later in September. Follow the jump for full details in Audi’s press release.

Growing up in Canada, my mother had a Dodge Caravan with fake wood siding. Then she replaced it with… another Dodge Caravan with fake wood siding. The wisdom of plastic made to look like wood notwithstanding, the van hardly felt rock-solid. Meanwhile, someone in Russia – that bastion of good taste that brought us, among other abominations, that hideous Cayenne/Touareg monstrosity – thought it would be a good idea to cover his brand new Audi S5 with a film that makes it look made of marble. Our first reaction: he was probably stoned when he decided this was a good idea.

[Source: German Car Zone via CarScoop]

Click above to view high-res gallery of the Audi Q5 with new images

Audi released the other half of its Q5 glamour shots over the weekend. We’ve updated the gallery with all of the images we could get our hands on (you can switch to a “high-res” view with the button on the upper right corner - perfect for saving desktops). Audi also tossed in several shots from the Q5’s world introduction at the Beijing Auto Show. We always get a kick out of the designers, engineers, and executives standing around like beaming new parents. From our perspective, the Q5 looks like a typical Audi, the designs of which are beginning to lose their visual punch after having been spread across so many models.

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Audi Q5

For months now we’ve seen spy photos and heard speculation about Audi’s new Q5 CUV. Now, we finally have the official news on the latest entry from Ingolstadt. Unlike its big brother the Q7, the Q5 doesn’t share an architecture with a VW model. The Q5 utilizes the same underpinnings as the A5 coupe and A4 sedan/wagon. That means the Q5 has a longitudinally mounted engine rather than the transverse powerplant found in the smaller VW Tiguan.

While we were in Germany to drive the new A4, Audi invited us into their design center in Ingolstadt to check out their new virtual reality design system and have a look at the Q5 in the metal, prior to its official coming out party in Beijing. Compared to the Q7, the Q5 looks substantially more compact than its hefty sibling and is much tidier design overall, keeping with Audi’s current pretensions of being a premium sporting brand. In fact the Q5 falls right in the heart of the premium mid-size CUV segment. Learn more about the Q5 design after the jump

Click above for high-res gallery of ALMS action from Long Beach

With Champ Car going the way of the dodo bird after this year’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, it looks like the American Le Mans Series is poised to take over top billing at America’s Monte Carlo. The street course around downtown Long Beach, California is quite a track, with a long tradition of motorsport excitement. Everything from Formula 1 to CART to Trans-Am have run here, but very few series can match the thrill of four different classes running into the dusk like the ALMS presents. This year’s sophomore running of the Tequila Patrón American Le Mans Series at Long Beach showed exactly why the series deserves more support and coverage than it gets. Not only was the on-track action enthralling, but the huge crowds that Long Beach always attracts seemed to go ga-ga over the prototypes and GT cars wearing names like Porsche, Aston Martin, Corvette and Ferrari. In case you haven’t seen the race yet, the results are after the jump. Don’t let that stop you from clicking through the massive high-res gallery however.

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Audi Cross Coupe Quattro.

We’re less than 12 hours away from seeing the Audi Q5 officially revealed at the Auto China Show in Beijing, and according to Süddeutsche Zeitung, Audi’s new cute ‘ute will be assembled in Changchun, in northern China. The German rag cited unspecified China-based sources for the information, but Audi isn’t answering any questions ahead of the reveal tomorrow. The Q5 is due to hit dealers in Europe later this summer and sales are expected to begin in the States towards the beginning of next year. It’s likely we’ll hear about Audi’s production plans for the Q5 during tomorrow’s press conference and you can watch the reveal live on Audi’s online media site.

From the some-automakers-have-more-money-than-sense department comes a new commercial for the Audi RS6. The minute-long teaser spot features some kind of synchronized gymnastics routine that we guess is supposed to signify a bunch of people working together like a finely tuned machine. We think there are some gymnasts imitating the pistons in the blisteringly fast RS6 V10, and there was a human crankshaft and some headlights too, but it’s hard to tell with it being people in tights and all. The last three seconds is the first indication that this is a car commercial, as the front end of the sledge hammer RS6 is finally shown.

We know it’s a teaser ad, but next time we’d like to see a little more sheet metal and a lot less flesh. Besides, didn’t Ford just do the people as cars thing a couple months ago? Hit the jump to view the minute-long commercial, then let us know what you think in the comments.

[Source: YouTube]

Click above to watch the video

Some people just can’t be satisfied. As if the Lotus Esprit weren’t still one of the hottest-handling cars on the market, back in 1996 the British sportscar firm updated the iconic Bondmobile with an all-new 3.5-liter twin-turbo V8 to give it more of a fighting chance of showing up cars like the Ferrari 355 and Porsche 911 Turbo. Not enough for one enthusiast on the Motorgeek.com forum going by the name of “hilly”, who apparently just wasn’t satisfied with the engine in his ‘81 Esprit S3. So he yanked it out and painstakingly swapped in the all-aluminum 4.2-liter V8 from the Audi A8. Although the Esprit’s engine bay could accommodate the engine, turning it around and squeezing it in there was no mean feat, requiring the project’s undertaker to custom fabricate a slew of parts himself. Follow the link to the forum where hilly describes the process with pictures, or follow the jump to watch the Audi-powered Lotus disappear fast into the horizon.

[Source: Motorgeek.com via CarScoop]

There’s no denying that Audi is planning more variants of the TT and R8, but most of the speculation revolves around fitting both models with high-output engines to produce RS variants. The TT-RS is expected to house a turbocharged, five-cylinder engine making around 350 hp and the R8 will benefit from some form of forced induction, with either a V8 or V10 mill taking the place of the stock 4.2-liter V8 – not to mention the V12 TDI mill. But what about weight reduction?

According to Inside Line, Audi is considering “Sport” variants of both models, a concept that was executed back in 2005 with the introduction of the TT Quattro Sport, which featured a slight bump in power, revised suspension, Recaro thrones and nixed some of the superfluous material inside. Unfortunately, it never made it Stateside.

The new “Sport” versions of each model would use a similar philosophy, and in the case of the R8, that could mean a boost in power to around 500 hp, limiting some of the creature comforts like heated seats, climate control and stereo, and replacing the hood, engine cover, dash, doors and roof with carbon fiber components. And while Inside Line was speculating, they threw on some carbon ceramic brakes for good measure. All told, that could drop the R8’s curb weight by some 200 pounds, dropping its 0-60 time into the high three-second range and paying dividends in the handling department. Inside Line expects both models to make it to production next year as 2010 models, although distribution in the U.S. is still an open question.

[Source: InsideLine]