Past master
Why Audi’s A2 is almost a cult classic
The A2 made extensive use of aluminium in order to be as light and strong as possible
Avisceral driving experience, whether it be through the brute force of a powerful engine or the satisfying delicacy of a good chassis – or ideally both – more often than not provides the perfect recipe for an interesting car. But it is not the only approach one can take.
There are few better exemplars of that than the Audi A2. Sold in the UK from 2000 until 2005, when a shortage of demand and an excess of production costs resulted in its early demise, the A2 is not a noteworthy car for the helmsmen among us.
This, though, can be forgiven in light of the fact that Audi pitched the A2 not as a hot hatchback but into the same market as the Mercedesbenz A-class, using a similarly upright stance to create a roomy interior, given the car’s overall footprint – and, all in, a package that could negotiate an elk without making headline news.
Where the Audi differed was in its cutting-edge construction, which made extensive use of aluminium in order to be as light and as strong as possible. This included not only the panels but also the car’s core structure, which was based around an extruded aluminium spaceframe (much like the larger Audi A8’s), with the only major steel component being the bulkhead behind the front bumper.
Audi reckoned that this made the A2’s bodyshell about 40% lighter than if it had been built using steel. Along with a low drag coefficient (at 0.25, it’s still impressive even by today’s standards), it provided the A2 with a recipe for some extraordinary fuel economy.
So frugal was the A2, in fact, that it become the first car to ever achieve official average fuel economy of 3.0 litres per 100km – 94mpg. Admittedly, that particular 1.2-litre TDI diesel A2 was never sold in the UK because it would have been more expensive to buy than a betterequipped 1.4 TDI diesel and no cheaper to tax.
However, even those A2s that were sold on our shores remain impressively light and thrifty machines. Under the bonnet of a UK A2, buyers had a choice of that 1.4-litre diesel, a 1.4-litre petrol or, later in the car’s life, a 1.6-litre FSI direct-injection petrol unit. That bonnet, by the way, is not hinged like a conventional one but fully removable via catches when access to the engine is required. Fluids are topped up via a hatch in the grille.
It’s the 1.6-litre petrol engine that sits in our test car. This writer knows it well, having bought it a few months ago and subsequently fixed it twice, tarnishing perhaps some of the A2’s reputation for being a bulletproof runabout. To date, ours would have thrown a warning light at the mere sight of a Nerf gun.
However, there are plenty of A2s with six-figure mileages around to suggest that the car can handle such use with ease, and flaws such as the poor rear visibility, fidgety ride and lifeless steering are easy to forgive in light of the spacious and highquality interior, not to mention the pioneering engineering on display.
When Audi cut its losses (estimated at more than £1.2 billion) and withdrew its small car from sale in 2005, some said it was because it had built a machine ahead of its time. However, more than a decade on, one might equally conclude that the time for an all-aluminium supermini will simply never arrive.