Audi A2 review

I saw Audi’s Al2 concept at the Frankfurt Show in 1997. Two years before the appearance of the production A2, this seemed a typically overdone, but irresistible piece of Audi technology, beamed straight from the super ego of VW Group Chairman Dr Ferdinand Piëch.

Three litres per 100km (94.2mpg) fuel consumption was the aim, and he’d set Audi engineers against VW’s to achieve the result, the former with the A2 and the latter with the Lupo ‘three-litre’.

There’s even a too-delicious-to-check story that, on learning that Renault was planning to launch a three-litre Renault Clio at the Paris Show, Piëch rushed through an early drive of the Lupo three-litre, which shared the Audi’s drivetrain, only to find that Renault’s three-litre Clio was actually a 3-litre V6 mid-engined monster, far from a rival for the 100mpg fuel sipper that Piëch’s engineers had toiled over.