An open letter to Audi UK

[R8 England]

Members might be interested in my email to Audi UK and their reply below.
Above all, they are listening to us, their customers, and are seeking to address our comments and complaints.



Sent: 24 February 2007 19:25
To: beverley.Holloway@audi.co.uk; mike.faiers@audi.co.uk
Subject: Audi R8


Att: Mr Mike Faiers

C.C. Ms Bev Holloway


Dear Ms Holloway & Mr Faiers,


It was nice to meet you both at the Grove and discuss a few open points.

It is a great shame that Audi GmbH, in its drive for the USA, appears to have temporarily abandoned the UK in terms of marketing information and updates. This is surprising since the UK was Audi's best export market for high performance "RS" models, and is already a sell-out for 2007 & 2008 R8 production.

You will no doubt be aware of one the best R8 forums www.r8audi.com of which many UK purchasers are members, myself included. This website has the latest updates, including a great deal of information that your office appears unaware of.

As you can see from the posting below, dated 20th February, potential US purchasers have already viewed and driven the R8, in the full range of colours and specifications, complete with new options (e.g. dark coated wheels) that have been previously unseen and unheard of.........

I believe that we are getting closer to build slots and that specifications will need finalising soon. I am still undecided on the colour - Mugello or Jet blue.

As you will see from other threads on the forum, many, many UK purchasers are critical at the lack of information from Audi UK. For my part, I find it is astounding that it is not even possible to view photographs of the R8 in different colours - a small laptop image on the Audi configurator is the best you could do - whilst the Americans have actual cars!

Can Audi GmbH not even provide you with photographs ???

I personally greatly appreciate that you and your colleagues are doing your very best to organise UK marketing events with the information available to you, so perhaps this email should correctly be addressed to the marketing Directors of Audi GmbH.

They appear to have forgotten one of their best and most loyal markets for Audi flagship models.

I believe this email speaks for many in the UK; would you be kind enough to forward it to those concerned in Germany ??

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,


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From: Holloway, Beverley
Cc: Faiers, Mike
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 1:52 PM
Subject: RE: Audi R8



Many thanks for your mail.


We are of course aware of the various R8 forums, R8talk.com certainly being one of the more influential, and we do read this on a regular basis because the opinions and views of R8 customers is very important to us. Indeed, we have forwarded the details to Audi AG so that they can read these views for themselves.

Firstly, to clarify the situation regarding the Las Vegas event:

Las Vegas was the chosen venue for Audi AG to host the worldwide launch of R8 - they have been there for some weeks now. Firstly, all the worldwide motoring press would have been invited, followed by representatives from all of the world's Audi Importers - usually Audi centre owners/Heads of Business. Audi UK representatives attended last week.

The reason that Audi US customers were permitted to attend this launch is simply because they were the host country - no other importer was permitted to take customers. I do understand your frustration but as I'm sure you can appreciate, there is no way that Audi AG could invite all R8 customers from each country - they simply couldn't cope with the demand.

I can assure you that I have been putting lots of pressure on Audi AG to provide us with a photograph of a vehicle in every colour with each sideblade option. They have confirmed that they should be able to provide these to us in the coming weeks but they are not all currently available. We plan to send each customer a copy of their specification and a photograph of their vehicle in their chosen colours as soon as we have this from Audi AG.

I attended the US event last week and made it a priority to photograph every vehicle colour with each sideblade option that I saw. We displayed them at our R8 preview events at Mere Golf Club over the weekend and will take them to all future events. FYI, there are currently no vehicles built in Mugello Blue or Monterey Green and the full range of colour combinations with sideblade options were not available. These photos are attached for your reference, I am happy for you to forward these to R8talk. The quality is really not good enough to send them as part of an official communication but I hope they will provide some assistance to our customers.

Quattro GmbH are the subsidiary of Audi AG who are responsible for Audi exclusive equipment. The photographs that you have of the alloys were part of a display that they had set up as part of the event and when we visited the US last week it was the first time we had seen them. It is a very difficult situation for us because we know that our customers want to order a unique, bespoke vehicle, but until we have received an official communication from GmbH with full information regarding what is going to be made available, we cannot communicate this to our customers. For example, the much-talked about Silver carbon sideblade displayed at the Detroit Motorshow will not be made available, and yet GmbH decided to display it at the show. Certainly exclusive option will be made available but I genuinely do not know at this stage when they will be providing us with specific information, although I suspect that it will be within the next few weeks.

I can assure you that we are constantly fighting the corner for our UK customers and AG are of course aware that we are a very important market for them.

Customers will know within the next 6 weeks when they can expect to take delivery of their vehicle. In addition, we are in the process of organising a driving experience event which all R8 customers will be invited to attend - I am awaiting details of circuit availability at the moment and as soon as this is organised we will communicate details to our customers.

Having met many R8 customers and spent time speaking to them on the telephone and looking at forums websites, I really do understand that this is a very frustrating situation for you. I promise that since taking over the R8 team I am doing everything that I can to rectify this. I will of course forward your email to Audi AG as requested.

Kind regards

Bev Holloway
R8 & Specialist Sales Operations Manager

Audi UK


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[Paul]

R8 England ... nice e-mail, thanks for posting it here ... also ... you have a private message ...

[R8chris]

yep, thanks R8 ENGLAND!! nice to read that this forum gets the attention it deserves... allthough i think me and my little switzerland will be forgotten overall...

i will just stick to my phantomblack / silver SB'ed car and hope that it was no mistake... no, black must be awesome



BTW - i will be in geneva on thursday 8th march taking pics in the VIP lounge of the black R8 etc... so keep tuned in

[Paul]

Thanks to R8 England and his fabulous e-mail ... we can now reveal some pictures of different colours and sideblade sombinations ... enjoy ...
Phantom Black and Carbon Sigma
Daytona Grey and Carbon Sigma
Daytona Grey and Oxygen Silver
Jet Blue and Oxygen Silver
Brilliant Red and Carbon Sigma
Ice Silver and Oxygen Silver
Ibis White and Carbon Sigma

R8Chris ... you might want to look at the Ice Silver and Oxygen Silver picture carefully ... there are a couple of dark colour cars behind it ... I think they are probably Daytona Grey and Oxygen Silver ... but in the picture the second R8 back looks close(ish) to Phantom Black and Oxygen Silver.

[Kreso]

Jet Blue with Ice Silver

[jampoTT]

No pics of Mugello yet?

[R8 England]

JampoTT, read Audi's reply above !

No cars yet made in Mugello blue or Monterey green

Hence the problem I have - ordering Jet blue or Mugello !!!

[jampoTT]

JampoTT, read Audi's reply above !

No cars yet made in Mugello blue or Monterey green

Hence the problem I have - ordering Jet blue or Mugello !!!

Yeah, sorry fella - that wasn't a question, but a disappointed statement!

I even forgot to thank you for posting the message.

[R8chris]

thanks paul - not sure what that is.. but i know there are phantomblack cars with silver SBs around in LV... check this vid I posted from KADWAR :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWdTcWL7TlE

He will soon supply me with the long awaited picture of this car...

and as I mentioned.. I will be in geneva, but there we will only find the black/carbon r8...

[R8 England]

No problem Jampott !!!

Yup, I want to get the colour question - Mugello or Jet - sorted before build date is committed.