Audi's Design Drive

The German luxury brand's executive design director discusses how design is helping the company catch up to BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the U.S.

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November 27, 2007 at 2:06 AM UTC

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For the past two years, Audi of America has been staging a comeback in the U.S. Perennially a brand that has lagged behind its German luxury counterparts, BMW (BMWG) and Mercedes-Benz (DAI), particularly within the lucrative American car market, Audi has been busy playing catch-up.

And it seems to be working. So far this year, sales of the company's tony cars are up 10% over 2006. At the current pace, Audi should sell about 90,000 vehicles by the end of 2007, an increase from previous years, but still far behind its European competitors and Toyota Motor's (TM) Lexus Div., which regularly sells more than three times that figure annually. To continue closing the gap, Audi has been bringing new models to market, including the Q7 SUV, R8 supercar, and A5 coupe. The new vehicles may be in different segments, but they all have one thing in common: an aggressive new design language, the beginnings of which were established in 2004.