OP6 • THEEDGE SINGAPORE | FEBRUARY 2, 2009

XXXXX THE ASCOTT INTERVIEW

From the passenger seat of the Audi R8 sports car, things seem to happen quickly, particularly as we approach the end of the

front straight at Sepang Interna-tional Circuit in Malaysia. Rein-hold Carl, managing director of Audi Singapore, is at the wheel, the speedometer has pushed past 200kmh and he shows no signs of slowing. As we flash past a sign indicating 100m remaining before the first turn, he slams on the brakes, throws the car into the bend with tyres squealing, and soon we are accelerating again.

To the casual observer, it may seem on the edge of control, but there is more to it than that: The car is fitted with a GPS device that accurately maps his every move. The speed at which things hap-pen on the racetrack may match Audi’s spectacular rise in Singa-pore over the last few years, but the approach has been similarly systematic.

“Singapore really was not per-forming very well,” says the af-fable German. “I had a ‘look and see’ trip at the end of 2006 and then, in January 2007, I went to Singapore to build up a new team and, in October 2007, we took over the importership,” he says. “We started with sales of rough-ly 650 cars. The next year, it was 956 cars, and this year it will be around 1,300.”

The first step to doubling sales in such a short time was to con-centrate on branding. “I think the first time that Singaporeans recog-nised Audi with the new Audi im-porter was with the R8 and driv-ing down Orchard Road, with the vintage cars,” says Carl.

To coincide with the Singa-pore launch of the R8 in Novem-ber 2007, Audi brought in sever-al successful cars from its racing heritage, including an Auto Un-ion Type C and an Audi R8 Le Mans Prototype, which were driv-en down Orchard Road, garnering public and press attention in the process. Other initiatives includ-ed pre-launching cars by showing them to potential customers up to a year before the local launch, and giving people the chance to sam-ple the cars with the Audi Drive Experience at Changi. That event attracted 1,500 people. “It was ba-sic training but people liked this approach very much,” he says. “We tried to do something that had not been done before.”

Other activities that Audi con-ducts worldwide have been of-fered to local customers too. These include factory tours, a winter driver training programme in Fin-land, and trips to the 24-hour race at Le Mans, none of which had been made available to local cus-tomers before.

But all the new-found atten-tion for the brand may have been squandered if the product hadn’t been right. “First of all, I looked at the equipment — the cars be-came more sporty, with a higher

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Carl: When I arrived in 2006, I was driven in a taxi from the airport to the hotel and I didn’t see any Audis! If you drive through Singapore now, you will see a lot of Audis.

things Reinhold Carl, managing directorof Audi Singapore, talks to Tony Watts about the renaissanceof the brand in the countryUP

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