Lei Jun launched the "best car within 500,000" vote, and Audi A6 "unexpectedly" won the first place

Maybe Audi itself didn't expect that the Audi A6 would become "the best-looking sedan within 500,000".

On January 22, Lei Jun launched a vote on Weibo to investigate "the best-looking car within 500,000", and said that for the sake of fairness, Xiaomi SU7 will not participate.

Lei Jun offers a total of nine sedan options: Mercedes-Benz C Series, BMW 3 Series, Audi A6, NIO ET5, Xpeng P7, Tesla Model 3, BYD Han, Zhijie S7 and ZEEKR 001. By the end of voting, a total of 111,000 people participated, with the Audi A6 ranking first with 32,000 votes, followed by Mercedes-Benz C Series and Tesla Model 3 in third place.

Seriously, this result is still a bit unexpected. Xpeng P7 and Weilai ET5 have always been popular among young people in terms of appearance, and Zhijie S7 and Zeekrypton 001, as popular new cars in 2023, have also attracted a lot of attention. But I didn't expect that in the end, it was Audi A6 that ranked first as an "old car". It really makes people wonder whether the current rice noodles are a group of young people or a group of middle-aged people.

However, as China's earliest and most classic luxury official car, many of the designs of the Audi A6 have indeed influenced one or two generations.

In 1988, FAW and Audi entered into a joint venture agreement, and Audi's luxury car products began to appear in the Chinese market. The Audi 100, which was first assembled in China, and the Audi 200, which was later derived, can be said to be the "ancestor" of the Audi A6. It was only in 1994 that the Audi 100 was officially renamed the Audi A6.

At that time, FAW also added Chrysler 2.0L and 2.2L engines on the basis of the Audi 100 to create the Hongqi CA7200 series, so since then the Chinese people have associated Audi with luxury official cars.

However, the most classic is the second-generation Audi A6, which was launched in thousands of years. In 2000, the Audi A6 was introduced to the Chinese market in the form of "global synchronous domestic production". This generation of domestically produced Audi A6 has brought a far-reaching concept to the Chinese market - lengthening.

Until now, there may still be fans who pursue the original and scoff at the act of "lengthening". But at that time in 2000, a car that was big enough and long, comfortable and stylish enough was in line with the needs of officialdom and business people, and also catered to the understanding of the concept of luxury by ordinary people.

Therefore, although the income of our fathers at that time may have been 1,800 yuan a month, the listing price of the Audi A6 has reached 369,100-512,200 yuan, which can buy two suites in Beijing's Fifth Ring Road at that time. Even so, the number of new cars scheduled for the Audi A6 has already exceeded 2,000 units before it goes on sale.

Later, this generation of Audi A6 was purchased by various enterprises and other units as an official car, and the people who sat on this car at that time could really be said to be either rich or expensive, which also set off a wave of lengthening of executive-level luxury cars with Chinese characteristics.

BMW Brilliance, founded in 2003, and Beijing Benz, founded in 2005, although their status is higher than that of Audi, they also have to follow the market and follow Audi's example to launch extended models. However, after all, the Audi A6 is still the first to eat crabs, and its image status in the minds of the Chinese people is also more prominent. And what's even more interesting is that Mercedes-Benz BMW followed the trend and launched an extended version, and was once scolded so much that it couldn't raise its head. Only the Audi A6, which has been lengthened from generation to generation, has rarely been complained about. This is because compared with other brands that "elongate" the tail, the lengthening of the Audi A6 will take more care of the coordination of the proportions of the whole vehicle.

Since then, each generation of Audi A6 introduced in China will continue to be lengthened, with a wheelbase of "3" and a length of "5", which has almost become a standard for defining contemporary luxury models in terms of size. Nowadays, looking at the various models launched by domestic brands, those who do not meet this standard are embarrassed to say that they are luxury cars.

Another classic of the Audi A6 is in the color. In 2000, the Audi A6 was launched, which sparked a boom in car purchases by the wealthy in China at that time. Especially before 2008, China's economic growth momentum was strong, and many businessmen who became rich quickly were born. The Audi A6, which is low-key and luxurious, and at the same time can be more accessible to officialdom, has become their first choice of car. Moreover, the body color also follows the low-key preferences of government and business people, and black, white and gray have become the mainstream choices, which has even established the color style of China's luxury car market.

The third classic feature of the Audi A6 must be the lights. It is said that Audi is a "lamp factory", and the lights can be said to be another innovation of Audi A6 after "lengthening".

At the time of the mid-2008 facelift of the Audi A6, how to form a breakthrough was placed in front of Audi R&D personnel, and the strategy of the lamp factory became the mainstream of Audi's ideology. Although, like LED headlights, LED daytime running lights, these configuration designs are first applied to the Audi A8, but the price of the A8 is too expensive after all, and it is the Audi A6 that really gives everyone a taste of the charm of the lights. More than 10 years ago, when I saw the LED taillights of the Audi A6 on the street, it was absolutely unbearable. The design of matrix headlights, laser headlights and so on is also impressive.

Whether it is the body size, color or lights, the Audi A6 is a luxury car benchmark in the minds of the Chinese people, especially the older generation, and has a profound impact on the design of the luxury cars behind it. Even judging from the last two generations of models, Mercedes-Benz BMW's design is often criticized for declining, but Audi's appearance is always online.

Although under the tide of new energy, BBA's luxury positioning has been affected to varying degrees, but Audi A6 is too classic in people's minds after all. Therefore, there is a certain reason why Audi A6 can win the first place in the vote. Do you agree with the results of this survey, Audi A6 is still not "the best looking car within 500,000"?

(Text/Youshi Auto Old Cannon)

Note: The picture comes from the Internet, the rights belong to the original author, thank you together! This article only represents the author's personal views and does not represent the position of Youshi Auto.