STRAIGHT OUTTA INGOLSTADT

摘要

Audi has sold more than 12 million A4s worldwide going back to 1972, when the car was called the 80/Fox. That's a remarkable number of cars. To give you some perspective, Toyota has "only" sold around 11 million Camrys in the U.S. Any way you slice it up, and despite the recent global SUV-buying trend, the A4 is the most important car Audi builds, the brand's Brot und Butter if you will, so introducing a ninth-generation A4 is a major undertaking. The competition is of course stronger than ever. You have the ever-present and always potent BMW 3 Series, the resurgent Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the spectacular new Jaguar XE, and the incredibly great-driving Cadillac ATS, among others. Long story short, a new A4 had better be pretty dang exceptional. News flash: It is. Before we dive into what makes the new A4 the best A4 yet, I want to discuss two major gripes that have both long upset me about Audis in general but that have been fixed. The first is-and I hope you're sitting down-the MMI controller wheel finally spins the right way! After nearly a decade of spinning in the opposite direction of every other car on the market (left to scroll down), Audi has caved in, and at least for tuning the radio and scrolling through your music and contact list, the wheel works properly. However, it still works backward in terms of zooming in and out of navigation maps. One step at a time, I guess.