Auto News 5

Built between 1999 and 2005, the Audi A2 was a car ahead of its time. No, it never made any money, and with only 176,377 units produced, it remained a niche model. Why did it flop? Because customers refused to pay a premium for packaging excellence, top aerodynamics (it had a Cd of just 0.25), and amazing efficiency (roughly 94.7 mpg on the European cycle). But despite the commercial crash landing, the narrow and tall alloy-bodied one-box runabout worked wonders for the then-lackluster Audi brand image, helping to establish the Vorsprung durch Technik claim.