Audi Beginning to Exert Its Influence on Ducati

The acquisition of Ducati by Audi was a curious matter, to say the least. From a financial point of view, the €860 million ($1.12 billion) is spare change for the leviathan that is the VW Group as a whole. Their possible exchange of technology is also minimal, because Ducati makes only motorbikes, whereas Audi makes only cars, and more recently bicycles.

Our thoughts on the acquisition can be found here, and it seems that Audi are finally beginning to shed light on the reason behind buying Ducati, and it’s something which had already been tried in the past, back when Ducati was liked to Mercedes’ ‘hot-rodding division’, AMG. They used the motorbikes to sell their cars, by associating the both and making people want both, or if they had one, they were made to want the other - it’s as simple as that.

And now, Audi’s influence is beginning to make its presence felt, as Audi and Lamborghini (both in the VW Group) are expected to be present at World Ducati Week, an event which will take place at the Misano race track. The main aim is to have their higher performance cars alongside the motorbikes, in order to convince bike owners to get cars and vice versa.

If Ducati was a car brand (just hypothetically), they would make supercars, and this association is what Audi execs are betting their money on - selling their high-peroformance cars to Ducati motorbike owners.

Story via visordown.com