09/08/2008 16:21. In 1995, Audi was hanging by a burning thread in the U.S. Thanks to some spectacularly bad cars and a meta-scandal concerning mysterious "unintended acceleration," U.S. sales of VW's luxury division had spiraled down to around 7,000 cars, and it was no feat to imagine Audi exiting the American scene with its Teutonic tail between its legs. The subsequent turnaround -- all those sexy and beautiful cars such as the TT and the R8, the foundational leaps in technology such as direct injection, the eight wins at Le Mans, the toe-to-toe-ing with Mercedes and BMW, all of that -- began with the release of the Audi A4.

The A4 was Audi's iPod.

Among other things, A4 demonstrated VW-Audi's conception of vertically reinforced product development. In most car companies, the lab coat research and... // DetNews.com