VW’S Audi to buy Ducati
Motorcycle maker going for an undisclosed price
Volkswagen adds motorcycles to empire of auto brands including Bentley, Lamborghini.
The second time is proving the charm in Volkswagen’s pursuit of Italian motorcycle maker Ducati. VW’S Audi unit is going to buy Ducati a few years after losing it on first try to equity company Investindustrial.
Through the deal, VW adds high-end motorcycles to its growing empire of auto brands that includes VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat, Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini. Just for good measure, throw in heavy truck makers Scania and MAN, as well.
Audi said the sale of Ducati will close as soon as it gets regulatory approval, and it won’t say how much it’s paying.
Ducati sold around 42,000 motorcycles last year and had revenue of about $630 million. Founded by Adriano and Marcello Ducati in Bologna in 1926 as a radio company, it began making motorcycles in 1949.
Ducati would complement Audi’s luxury car lineup, and its Italian Lamborghini sports car and Italdesign auto design units. Ducati products, for instance, include a $23,000 Superbike 1199 Panigale S. It also brings expertise in small, high-performance engines and lightweight materials and is active in racing.
The purchase also gives Audi a bike unit like archrival BMW, which sells bikes under its own brand and also owns Husqvarna.
“Ducati is known worldwide as a premium brand among motorcycle manufacturers,” Audi management board Chairman Rupert Stadler said in a statement.
Mercedes-benz is taking another crack at a small luxury car, and this one, coming next week to the big auto show in Beijing, looks like a winner.
For now, it’s being called the Concept Style Coupe, featuring deeply sculptured sides, including one crease that runs along the sides and all the way through the headlights.
It makes its debut at Auto Chi- Join our forum to discuss the vehicles that we drive at driveon.usatoday.com na later this month.
It’s probably a mistake to try to offer a description of a car that is best seen in photos, but Gorden Wagener, the top design executive at Mercedes offers this statement: “The almost production-standard Concept Style Coupe sets a new benchmark for avant-garde design. Its breathtaking proportions, sinewy fluid surfaces and sculptural lines are the physical expression of our dynamic design idiom.”
A major redo is in the works for Infiniti’s G lineup. An Infiniti insider in Japan recently spilled the beans to Motor Trend about the brand’s plans.
Motor Trend reports that the new G will go on sale in summer 2014 and will share the platform underpinning the MercedesBenz C-class — part of Infiniti’s growing technology-sharing arrangement with Daimler.
The new G will be a couple of inches longer and use a more muscular design. The sedan model will have a four-door-coupe-like silhouette. Both sedan and coupe models will return, but the coupe won’t arrive until 2015.
The biggest news is in the power train department, where choices may greatly expand. Infiniti is exploring whether to bring diesel power to its U.S. lineup, by borrowing the Mercedes-benz C-class’ 2.1-liter four-cylinder diesel engine that’s available in Europe.
Motor Trend’s source says that the next G will offer a hybrid power train version of Infiniti’s 3.5-liter V-6, as well as a conventional gas power train.
Also in the works: A G IPL (Infiniti Performance Line) version powered by a twin-turbocharged 3.7-liter V-6 good for 530 horsepower.