Stephen Bayley's opinion on the Audi A2 |
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Stephen is a real Guru of design and his ideas about style in cars are widely respected in the automotive world. When I mentioned him that I had bought 2 Audi A2s, he expressed respect for this little-known jewel. That's what he subsequently wrote on his monthly column on one of the best classic-cars magazines, 'Octane': |
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| "...It may be that the historic German inclination towards systematic thinking cannot accommodate the excesses demanded hy contemporary markets which have neither conception of nor interest in European taste. The Bauhaus did not do ruched leather, but nor - then - did the Bauhaus need to sell cars in Shenzhen. I give you, as evidence, the late Audi A2 (d.2005), the last great German car. It was technically adventurous, uncompromised in execution and completely original, but also very evidently a part of an established design tradition. And it looked so very German: it had those wilfully odd proportions and peculiar general arrangement that characterised Richard Vogts' Blohm & Voss BV141 reconnaissance aircraft or a Hanomag-Henschel F65 truck. And it was marvellous. The problem was that the A2 over-estimated the public's taste. But the reality of the car trade is that no-one goes bust underestimating it." |
| (OCTANE, issue 184, October 2018) |
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A great book written by Dirk-Michael Conradt
and published by |
