Audi's New Paint Tech Allows You To Go Completely Custom

A special edition version of the Audi Q2 crossover will debut this awesome new paint.

Audi has announced it’s become the first car manufacturer to put partial matting into mass production. While Audi already allows customers to extensively customize their cars to their specification, the new innovative paint process will allow practically limitless personalization. Now, you can make your Audi truly unique. The first model to benefit from this innovative paint process will be a new special edition version of the Q2 crossover dubbed the Q2 #2. This is how it works.

A fine beam minimally roughens the top layer of paint to create a matt image. As a result, lettering, logos or photos can be displayed on the painted sheet metal “with pixel accuracy and abrasion resistance”. Audi is the first car manufacturer to offer its customers this kind of individualization.

The process was developed by a team in the Technology Development division at Audi’s Ingolstadt plant. Here’s how it works. In the first step, an employee sticks a template made of thin plastic film onto the painted component such as the side blade of the Audi Q2 shown in photos. A specially developed system sprays the component under vacuum with a fine powder of crushed glass.

This removes a few thousandths of a millimeter from the top layer of clear lacquer and roughens it slightly at the same time. Thanks to the difference in surface structure, the motif stands out clearly after the template is removed. Each painted surface in the interior or exterior of the car can be individualized in this way, which Audi says gives the automaker an advantage over its competitors.

To showcase this new process, the Audi Q2 #2 special edition features a large pattern of crosses. It’s been available to order in Germany since October, with other markets to follow. While the Q2 is the first series production car to use partial matting, it isn’t the first Audi to benefit from the paint process - that would be the Audi R8 Coupe V10 plus “selection 24h” special edition that commemorated the success of the Audi R8 LMS racing car. The car featured matted “R8” lettering on the CFRP sideblades, but the partial matting was mostly done by hand at the time.

BMW Completely Rules Out Building A Pickup Truck

The fate of a German pickup now rests on VW and Audi.

Even though BMW has never sold a production pickup truck, the German luxury brand has built not one, but two prototype M3 pickups based on the E30 and E90 generation cars. Many markets, mainly Australia, have been begging BMW to build a pickup truck to rival the new Mercedes X-Class. Unfortunately, BMW has been hesitant, even calling the X-Class "appalling" in an interview.

At this year's 2018 Paris Motor Show, BMW told Motoring the bad news - a pickup truck isn't going to happen.

BMW development chief and board member Klaus Frohlich took responsibility for the decision saying, "I’m the bad guy." Even though BMW's Australian division has been begging the factory to build a pickup for years, Frohlich said: “I see no evidence that we can ever do a good proposition. If you look at the pickup market, it’s very much utilities, so median price points are very, very low. Every business case we did so far, it was by far not relevant. For us, the market segment is too small, because we are at the higher price level for pickups. The premium side of that market is extremely small [and] there’s only a few regions of the world – Australia is one of them.”

The development costs of a BMW truck would just be too high and the benefits too small. Mercedes saved costs by basing the X-Class on the Nissan Navara platform. BMW has already partnered with Toyota to build the Z4/Supra, so the idea of a Hilux-based BMW truck was also floated but Frohlich said: “We will never do something badge engineering."

Sorry to anyone who was holding out for a production version of the M3 Ute, but if you want one, you'll have to build it yourself.