My first official review of a non-Audi or Volkswagen model was scheduled to be a 2005 Suzuki Reno, not exactly the most exciting vehicle currently on the market, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right? Imagine my surprise when instead of the Reno, a 2005 Acura TL arrived in its place. Apparently the Reno had been involved in an accident and the TL was sent as its replacement. Not a bad trade.

I recently was able to review the new, completely redesigned Volkswagen Jetta in two separate locations. First during the short-lead press event in San Diego in early March and then a normal week long review back home in Colorado a few weeks later. This is one of the first times I’ve been able to test drive a model at sea level, then at the 6500 ft elevation I normally review at.

On February 21, 2005 I attended the 25th anniversary of quattro celebration at the Audi headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany. Dubbed "quattro night" by Audi, the celebration was a look back at Audi’s historic run in rallying in the 1980’s and the development of the quattro all-wheel drive system from the late ‘70’s to the present day. The night featured many of the famous Audi drivers from the past 25 years; Walter Rohrl, Michele Mouton, Hannu Mikkola, and Emmanual Pirro to name a few. The presentation was mainly announced in German, making it difficult for me to follow exactly what was going on, but I was there to photograph the event, so a perfect understanding of what was going on wasn’t exactly my main focus.

The all-new 2005 Audi A6 arrived in my driveway at the start of typical Denver area snow storm: light snow which melts, the temperature drops and causes the snow to freeze, and soon you have an entire city that is one large ice skating ring. Normally I try not to travel out in these condition because the drivers in this area are complete morons (don’t believe me? Check out this video - Windows Media Format). But on this afternoon, a trip to the Denver airport would be in order, to drop off my mother for her return home. The oncoming storm would be a good opportunity to drive the new A6 in less than perfect conditions, although considering the new A6 comes standard with quattro all-wheel drive and a slew of other safety features, I wasn’t expecting much drama.

I've added a new photo gallery of my wifes Scion xB. Mainly these shots were just for fun and to photograph something inbetween press cars.

Enjoy the gallery!

I’ve written the opening paragraph for this A6 review about five times now and can’t just get into the groove. Why? Because it is completely obsolete in new-car terms. When I reviewed it in October it was old news, now it’s just plain embarrassing to be writing about it. I suppose I should just save my energy to write about the all-new A6 when I review that, which hopefully will be in a few weeks.