# Audi Take Home Highest Premium Brand Distinction Award from Autobytel and AutoPacific



## tim330i (Dec 18, 2001)

The street fight between BMW, Audi and Mercedes continues. BMW recently cleaned up a the Automotive Brand Contest and now it is Audi's turn.

Audi was named the Highest Premium Brand for the Autobytel and AutoPacific 2012 Ideal Vehicle Awards (IVA). Based on a survey of over 75,000 new car and light truck owners, the IVAs recognize the cars that meet their owner's expectations and desires about their automotive purchases. Contributing to this standing was a sweep of the Aspirational Luxury Car category by the Audi A4, Audi A5 and Audi A6. The Audi Q5 and Q7 also had strong showings in their crossover SUV categories. All vehicles included in the survey represented the Audi 2012 model year.

Based on the largest single-model-year survey of automotive owners, the IVAs are designed to help consumers make informed vehicle purchase decisions with a true "peer-to-peer" survey. The IVAs recognize vehicles where owners wanted the least amount of change across 15 key vehicle attributes, including: exterior styling, exterior size, passenger spaciousness, cargo space, driver's seat comfort, driver's seat visibility, info/entertainment technology, interior lighting, power and acceleration, ease of getting in and out, interior storage compartments, ride, handling, safety features and tires and wheels.

Making a clean sweep of the Aspirational Luxury Car category, the Audi A4, Audi A5, and Audi A6 took top honors. The only cars in its class to offer quattro® all-wheel drive, the A4 and A5 are progressive takes on top-down driving. The award-winning 2.0 TFSI® engine provides 211 horsepower and 258 lb-ft. of torque and combines Audi valvelift system, variable valve timing and TFSI direct injection. Design refinements give the A4 and A5 model-line athletic elegance, most noticeably with the available unmistakable Audi xenon plus lighting with LED daytime running lights and tail lamps. Available convenience technologies, such as Audi MMI® Navigation plus and Audi music interface, add pure enjoyment to the driving experience. Entertainment is provided by an Audi six-channel stereo system with ten speakers, or an available Bang & Olufsen® 505 - watt, 14 speaker sound system.

The award-winning 2012 Audi A6 boasts an all-aluminum 3.0 L TFSI supercharged V6 engine with 310 horsepower. One of Audi's most innovative and technologically-advanced models to date, the A6 makes up to 2,000 decisions per second to assist the driver. Safety in the all-new Audi A6 is enhanced by a thermal imaging camera with Night Vision Assistant, the Audi Pre-Sense Plus safety system and quattro all-wheel drive technology. Other intelligent features include head-up display and a MMI Touch pad that recognizes handwriting in multiple languages. Audi is the first company worldwide to feature factory-installed wireless internet, enabling features such as Audi connect™ for real-time weather, traffic news and live fuel prices, and MMI Navigation with 3D Google Earth™ images.

More than 75,000 vehicle owners across all major manufacturers were surveyed to reveal the vehicles that best meet their owners' demands. The survey reflects the views of over 75,000 automotive owners who have owned their 2012 vehicles for 90 days. It then measures any changes that the owners would make to their new car or light truck.


* *




*About AutoPacific*
AutoPacific is a future-oriented automotive marketing research and product-consulting firm. Every year AutoPacific publishes a wide variety of syndicated studies on the automotive industry. The firm, founded in 1986, also conducts extensive proprietary research and consulting for auto manufacturers, distributors, marketers and suppliers worldwide. Company headquarters and its state-of-the-art automotive research facility are in Tustin, California, with an affiliate office in the Detroit area. Additional information can be found on AutoPacific's websites: http://www.autopacific.com and http://vehiclevoice.com/

*About Autobytel Inc.*
Autobytel Inc., an online leader offering consumer purchase requests and marketing resources to car dealers and manufacturers and providing consumers with the information they need to purchase new and used cars, pioneered the automotive Internet when it launched its flagship website in 1995. Autobytel continues to offer innovative products and services to help consumers buy, and auto dealers and manufacturers sell, more used and new cars. Autobytel has helped tens of millions of automotive consumers research vehicles; connected thousands of dealers nationwide with motivated car buyers; and helped every major automaker market its brand online. Through its flagship website, network of automotive sites and respected online affiliates, Autobytel continues its dedication to innovating the industry's highest quality Internet programs to provide consumers with a comprehensive and positive automotive research and purchasing experience, and auto dealers, dealer groups and auto manufacturers with some of the industry's most productive and cost-effective customer referral and marketing programs.

Investors and other interested parties can receive Autobytel news releases and invitations to special events by accessing our online signup form at http://investor.autobytel.com/alerts.cfm

*ABOUT AUDI*
Audi of America, Inc. and its U.S. dealers offer a full line of German-engineered luxury vehicles. AUDI AG is among the most successful luxury automotive brands globally. Audi was a top-performing luxury brand in Europe during 2011, and broke all-time company sales records in the U.S. AUDI AG is planning to invest a total of EUR 13 billion over the period 2012 through 2016 on new products and technologies. Visit www.audiusa.com or www.audiusanews.com for more information regarding Audi vehicle and business issues.


----------

