If you like brainteasers, try to figure out the missing pieces in this: Q1, Q3, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9. You don?t have to work at the NSA to figure out that Q2 and Q4 are missing, although that seems to have eluded Audi?s trademark lawyers about a decade ago. Audi planned to show a small Q2 crossover (believed to look like the 2012 Crosslane concept, above) at the Geneva auto show in March, and to build a sporty Q4 variant of the hot-selling Q3, but it couldn?t do it. Not because of engineering challenges or cash shortages, but because Fiat (now FCA) owned the trademarks to Q2 and Q4.
FCA always made it clear that the names weren?t for sale. The contingency for Audi was to call the Q2 the Q1, which robbed Audi of the chance to deliver an even smaller crossover off the upcoming Volkswagen T-Cross junior off-roader, which will be based off the VW Polo/Audi A1 architecture. There was no contingency for the Q4 problem. But it?s all settled now because Audi CEO Rupert Stadler made a phone call, then made another couple of phone calls, and it?s all been resolved, with the Volkswagen Group swapping trademarks with FCA. Speaking at the Detroit auto show, Stadler said that not only had he locked in Q2 and Q4, but that Audi had trademarked RSQ and SQ versions of all nine of its Q names?just in case.
Stadler said that getting the names had been a straight business transaction ten years in the making, with each party ultimately having ?found something we needed.? While the cynical would s...