When we first saw that the top Audi news story for the day was that the next iterations of the A4 and Q7 have been delayed for a year, we hit the snooze button, rolled over, and smothered our smartphones in disappointment.
As the day closes, however, and we take a closer look, we are surprised. Delays, after all, are costly. As Car Scoops pointed out, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have refreshed their mid-size sedan and full-size SUV models for the year. Any profits that might be reaped in sales floor contests will be much harder won as a result of a delay.
And the reason?
Style. The A4 will get needled a bit in its look, no doubt to match the Shooting Brake Concept, new S1 hot hatch, and TT designs that we’ve seen in the past month or two. Its suspension will also be recalibrated—does that really take a year?—and a plug-in hybrid version readied so that the pair can launch as close to concurrently as possible.
The Q7 apparently looks too Russian—not a direct quote, but it’s definitely in keeping with the company remark—which isn’t good enough now that the games in Sochi have finished. The Q7 is now onto its second head designer, Marc Lichte, after the first, Wolfgang Egger, was fired.
The man answerable for both vehicle’s delays is Research and Development head Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg who himself took his job in July of 2013. Understandably he probably wants his products to be perfect because they will be on the road for a while. Still, we think it a brave move to stick up for style even in the face of fresh competition, and even if it takes an entire calendar year.
The Q7 is expected now in the spring of 2015 and the A4 in the summer of 2015 at the earliest.