The Benchmark Evolves

Nobody does interiors like Audi AG, right?

In terms of material quality, tasteful design, tight shut lines — the overall harmony of an interior's ambience — few rivals match Audi. Its perceived quality now is one of the auto industry's conventional wisdoms, and the Audi A6 interior in particular has been the benchmark for several generations of luxury cars all over the world.

But even Audi, which has enjoyed considerable success in recent years, isn't immune to cost pressures. All auto makers dissect the competition, to the point of stripping down key new models, component by component, to fully understand their makeup and determine their cost.

When Audi's engineers cut up the interior of the current BMW 7-Series, they discovered that the interior door handles, which look like aluminum alloy, were in fact made of galvanized plastic.

New Audi boss Martin Winterkorn, seeing the chance to save a few euros, insisted the new A6 (released earlier this year in Europe and debuting in the U.S. next month) follow suit, rather than copy the A8, as originally intended. No compromises were made on Audi's flagship luxury sedan: A fully optioned A8 uses a staggering 140 individual interior bits made of aluminum alloy extrusions or injection moldings.

There are none in the new A6.

A close look at the A6 inner door handle — or one from the 7-Series — reveals the seam-line where the two plastic parts come together. It's not quite the same on the latest Mercedes SLK. That sports car's alloy-look gearlever also is galvanized plastic, but the door handle consists of injected-molded magnesium.

For the new A6, Audi adopted a BMW-like dashboard design that angles the center console toward the driver. It's a complete departure for Audi, a deliberate shift aimed at helping to give the A6 a more sporting image.

The decision came easily after Ingolstadt first saw the 7-Series. The BMW's interior dropped any overt emphasis toward the driver. Gossip, subsequently confirmed, suggested the Z4, new 5-Series and X3 were headed in the same direction.

“We fell about laughing when we saw that BMW had gone away from its driver-oriented interiors,” says Stefan Sielaff, the former interior design boss at Audi who was poached by Mercedes-Benz in 2003 to learn the secret of (and copy) Audi's brilliant cabins. “We couldn't believe they'd give it up.”

The new BMW 1-Series marks a subtle return to the old philosophy. The central console is slightly angled toward the driver.

Audi faces other problems. Research reveals that few people realize the slow-selling, underrated A2 uses an aluminum spaceframe and alloy body panels, much like the A8. Nothing about the interior of the baby car demonstrates its lightweight technology. That's now considered a mistake.

On the other hand, many customers continue to believe the all-steel TT is made of aluminum, simply because there are so many alloy bits in the interior. Besides, in silver the TT looks like it is honed from a single billet of aluminum.