Audi’s preparations for a small SUV crossover based on the next generation A3 involve a frustrating distraction – whether or not the premium Volkswagen group brand can use the Q3 badge it has planned.
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Nissan’s Infiniti luxury car division has the rights to the Q prefix – and only after an out-of-court settlement sanctioned Audi to use Q7 and the upcoming Q5, which will debut at the Beijing motor show in April.
Due on sale within two years, what should be the third member of Audi’s four wheel drive Q model family is due to compete with Volvo’s planned XC30 and Land Rover’s LRX, plus VW’s just-launched Tiguan, Ford’s Kuga, arguably Nissan’s hot-selling Qashqai and even BMW’s X3.
The nominal baby Q-car will be part of Audi’s new model product onslaught scheduled to expand its range from 25 to 40 variants by 2014.
But Infiniti, which carried the Q prefix on its Q45 flagship and sells the large QX56 SUV in Russia, decreed that, after Q7 and Q5, Audi’s access to the sequence would end.
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By GlobalDataHowever, an Audi source claimed there had been “more harmonious discussions” while another insider confirmed that “pocket crossover” prototypes are running.
Audi’s helter-skelter timetable continues with the A4 Avant (wagon) Geneva show debut next month, and the new Q5 taking centre stage in China following the A3 cabriolet’s phased European sales introduction.
Facelifted A3 hatchbacks will reach showrooms in September and the B-sector A1 should break cover at the Frankfurt show next year. And the new A5 cabriolet should appear within 18 months as a more exclusive successor to the current A4 convertible.
Meanwhile the twin clutch DSG automatic transmission system will appear in its first VW group longitudinal-mount application in the Q5, ahead of the A4 and A5.
Claims to names and numbers are an endemic problem for car makers and Peugeot’s grip on numbers with zeros in the middle prevented Porsche from calling what became the classic 911 the 901, although some of its racing cars carried the central zero.
Audi, meanwhile, stopped Volvo from numbering its S40 compact sedan the S4, and the Swedish automaker’s badging of the wagon counterpart as the F40 was ruled out by Ferrari, while V4 would have invoked (not so good) memories of the 1960s Ford Corsair and Transit powerplant and 1970s Saab 96 engines.
Hugh Hunston
[Editor’s note: Such little spats also occur in individual markets. Subaru’s Legacy had to be called the Liberty in Australia because another automaker had registered the original name there first. So that clashed with the later Jeep Liberty? No, that’s called the Cherokee outside North America…
Sometimes names do not translate well, either. Opel’s 1980s ‘Nova’ translated as ‘no go’ in Spanish and Mitsubishi‘s (also-’80s) Pajero was renamed Shogun for Europe as ‘Pajero’ also apparently had an unfortunate meaning in Spanish. Recently ‘LaCrosse’ was found to have embarrassing colloquial connotations for Buick in Canada – and the new model was renamed ‘Allure’ there.]
