Mini Fighter: Audi's new A2 to be radically different from previous model

The new A2 will be based on the Volkswagen Polo and look similar to the Shooting Brake concept, above, seen at Tokyo in 2005.

Audi will launch a radically different A2 successor by 2008. The car will be aimed directly at BMW's Mini.

"When we look at this segment it is clear there are a lot of customers who want a car below the A3," Audi Chairman Martin Winterkorn said in an interview at the Geneva auto show. "Mini has done well with its car. It has become more and more apparent there is demand there."

Audi sources said the next-generation steel-body A2 will arrive by 2008 and will be based on the front-wheel-drive Volkswagen Polo small car. The A2 may offer all-wheel drive. Winterkorn said the A2 will closely resemble the Shooting Brake concept shown last autumn at the Tokyo auto show.

The new A2 will have "that kind of style," Winterkorn said. "More emotion, more sportiness. A real eye-catcher that can become an icon."

The first A2 was shown as the A12 concept at the 1997 IAA in Frankfurt. Audi started selling the production version in 2000 and marketed it as the first volume car with an all-aluminum structure.

But it was E1,000 per unit more expensive to manufacture than a steel-body car and sold poorly.

By 2003, Audi had decided not to replace the A2 at the end of its life cycle. Production ended in mid-2005. Only 22,028 units were sold in western Europe in 2004, down from a peak of 51,813 units in 2001.

The new A2 is part of an Audi product offensive to raise its lineup to 40 models by 2015, up from 22. A new A2 also will heighten competition in the sales race between BMW and Audi.

Audi has publicly said it wants to sell 1.4 million vehicles globally by 2015, up from 829,109 in 2005. In 2003, the BMW group said it wanted to increase the company's global sales to 1.4 million vehicles by 2008.

But BMW says it is not concerned about competition from Audi.

"The average revenue per car for Audi in 2004 was E21,000. For BMW it was E35,000 -- including Mini," BMW Chairman Helmut Panke said at the Geneva auto show. "Audi is playing in the junior league as far as revenue per car is concerned." Tony Lewin contributed
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