Audi is presenting a new vehicle concept – the Audi A5 Sportback. The five-door model with the long, flowing rear end unites the best of various vehicle genres: the emotion and elegance of a coupe, the comfort of a sedan and the practicality of a station wagon. The Sportback joins the Coupé and Cabriolet as the third member of the A5 model family. A5 Sportback is not planned for the United States. 

A new landmark has arrived in the city of Ingolstadt just in time for Audi?s 100th anniversary. The giant Audi TT was presented this morning in the grassy area within the Audi roundabout by Dr. Werner Widuckel, Member of the Board of Management for Human Resources at AUDI AG, and Mayor of Ingolstadt Dr. Alfred Lehmann. The steel-frame construction, which has already been shown in Berlin, Beijing, Hong Kong and Munich, is 10.2 meters long, 4.5 meters wide, 3.25 meters high, and weighs about 10 tons.

On July 16th the Audi brand will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Only three days later, there may be another reason to celebrate: The 50th Audi victory in the most popular international touring car racing series is possible when the DTM visits the Netherlands.

With what is surely a unique motor sport event for the local people – “100 years of Audi on the Donauring” – Audi Tradition will be celebrating the brand’s centenary in Ingolstadt on July 18. On the historic circuit in the old town, almost every vehicle that bears witness to Audi’s historic racing successes will be on view to the public between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Jazz and Audi simply belong together. Jazz captivates large audiences: since 2001, more than 37,000 people have attended some 270 jazz concerts at the Audi Forum Ingolstadt. The Ray Brown Trio, Paul Kuhn and Freddy Hubbard are just a few of the performers that have appeared there. As a further sign of its close links with jazz, Audi decided to create its own concert grand piano at its concept design studio in Munich. The Audi Design grand piano is built by the celebrated Bösendorfer company of Vienna.

With around 91,200 cars, AUDI AG increased its global sales by 1.3 percent last month, compared to June 2008 (2008: 90,025). Over the first six months the brand narrowed the gap to the previous year’s record sales to minus 9.7 percent, with around 466,000 vehicles delivered (2008: 516,219). The main driving forces behind the sales success in June were record unit sales in China and Germany. Likewise, Audi’s business performance in the United States and Western Europe was much better than that of its competitors. Over the first six months of this year, Audi was the strongest premium brand in Western Europe.

In the second heat of the “RCN Green Challenge” held on the Northern Loop of the Nürburgring, Audi once again proved that performance and efficiency are not mutually exclusive: Two Audi TT 2.0 TFSI models entered the efficiency contest, finishing in 1st and 4th place. In this four-lap competition in Germany’s Eifel region, the drivers of the victorious TT Coupé boasted an average fuel consumption of only 1.6 liters per each lap of 20.832 kilometers (12.94 miles). With these results, the winner beat the standard city consumption serving as the benchmark by 28 percent – a feat unmatched by any other participant.

A concert grand piano is impressively large, usually black and has three legs to support the body with its typically curved sides. For more than 100 years, the complex internal mechanisms of these instruments have ensured their magnificent sound as well as determining the overall shape. The long tradition that has led to the grand piano has included many baroque versions that are not ideally matched to Audi’s design language. Despite this, the Audi Design Studio team in Munich decided to tackle the task of housing a concert grand piano in an Audi “outer skin”.

AUDI AG has had its best half-year ever in China (including Hong Kong), with 66,866 cars delivered between January and June – up 11 percent compared with the first half of 2008. The market leader in the Chinese premium segment set a new sales record in June with 13,265 cars sold, an increase of 28 percent.

Audi today announced that U.S. sales for the month of June reached 7,524 units, its best sales month of 2009.  Despite an economic environment that remains challenging, Audi expects its market share will improve in June, to 9.1% based on preliminary industry figures.