The UAE's appetite for performance cars is set to be further sated by the newly opened Audi Sport centre in Abu Dhabi, which is the first such stand-alone showroom for the brand anywhere in the world.
The spacious facility, at Al Sawari Tower A on West Corniche Road, follows the trend towards high-end car outlets being more like lifestyle stores, with its cars – including the RS Q3 quattro and the R8 V10 Plus Coupé quattro – on display across two floors, arranged in a manner closer to motor-show stands than regular pile-them-high sales spots.
There are a variety of displays dotted around the centre, including memorabilia from Audi’s decorated motorsport history, alongside the interior-material swatches, alloy-wheel options and items you would expect to find in a regular car showroom.
With many luxury carmakers, such as Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Aston Martin, choosing the UAE for pioneering boutique-style sales concepts in the past year, the Audi Sport centre represents another feather in the cap of the country in terms of motoring firsts.
Run by Ali & Sons, Audi’s distributor for Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, the centre arrives in response to increased demand for the German carmaker’s Sport brand.
Middle East sales (excluding Saudi Arabia) have grown 32 per cent for the year to date, while worldwide, Audi Sport sold a not-inconsiderable 17,000 units last year, and has doubled its high-performance-car sales in the past five years.
The sales of certain models in the year to date have been similarly upwardly mobile: they have risen 133 per cent for the R8 Coupé and 44 per cent for the range-topping R8 RS and R variants.
“The Middle East is an important region for us,” says Stephan Winkelmann, Audi Sport’s chief executive. “Middle Eastern customers are very likely to support and buy into performance cars.
“We think that this is the right region to do it because the customers are very keen and looking for exclusivity. And you have to have the right partner who is willing to invest in a brand like this.”
Ali & Sons has invested US$60 million (Dh220m) in the Audi brand in the past two years, including a new service workshop.
Worldwide, Audi expects to have 600 Sport dealers by the end of next year, up from the current total of 370. But for the foreseeable future, the Abu Dhabi centre will remain the only stand-alone branch. The others will be set up as “shop-in-shop” concepts within regular Audi dealers.
“This is the first Audi Sport centre,” says Winkelmann. “We are not asking for something like this around the world because we have a shop-in-shop system. For the time being, this is the [only] one.”
The former Lamborghini boss is rather coy when asked which new models we can expect to see in the Abu Dhabi centre in the coming months.
“In general, we’re looking to models in the future that are going to be sold worldwide, not only regionally,” he says. “In the next 18 months, we will have eight new products coming into the market for RS. Can I tell you which ones? Nope.”
aworkman@thenational.ae
