Successful by profitability too and still scoring well in brand awareness and respectability polls. Partly a matter of perspective, there are markets where Audi suffers from association with Volkswagen in positioning itself as premium and also from the "same style, different size" design regimen. BMW and Mercedes have been accused of that too but, to my eyes at least, Audi have been most guilty of it amongst the German premiums ever since the 80 and 100. In some markets, it's more about the bigger metal as well and the residuals aren't as good at that end of the range as lower down. Not for anyone really.

Still, I'll grant you VW have done wonders with Ingolstadt - 30 years ago we would never have dreamt of mentioning it in the same breath as Mercedes and BMW. Doesn't mean I don't want to kick those stupid daytime running LEDs in the face every time I see them though!!

I would argue that for BMW to double volume in 10 years, whilst managing to keep the brand intact at all, especially as those 10 years saw a number of Chris Bangle cars, is also pretty good going.