SuperCars

Audi has decided to join the rest of the automotive industry and is planning on building a diesel powered vehicle for the 2009 model year. Compared to most companies that have built deisel vehicles, Audi will be one of the best in the industry. The last greatest deisel vehicle that they built was the R10 TDI race car, which won at the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Petit Le Mans.

The 2009 R8 TDI is now next up on the list of greatness. For those who are not vehicle experts and do not know, TDI is the acronym for Turbocharged Direct Injection, the German automaker’s revolutionary diesel power plant that made its debut back in 1990 in the form of an inline five-cylinder powering the Audi 100 Wagon.

Many people are wondering why Audi would want to put a diesel in a car that already is so good in its present form? We know, clean diesels have proven they are for more than big pickups and school buses. Europeans swear by them. They would give up anything to pay a measly $3.45 a gallon like we do, while our low gas prices over the years prevented diesels’ torquey richness from being brought to the U.S.

We realize European buyers with $110,000-plus for an R8 TDI are not counting the change in their piggy banks for gas money. So, we suspect that it’s an image thing, or that they are addicted to the torque.