FRANKFURT, Germany -- The sleek, ground-hugging Audi TT won acclaim for its futurist design and responsive handling when the German roadster came to market in 1998 -- selling nearly 55,000 worldwide and 6,000 in the United States since.
But what was once a driver's dream machine has been tarnished by a series of deadly crashes in which speed-loving Germans pushed the high performance car to the limit, lost control and rocketed off the autobahn.Panic over the car's safety peaked when the former East German road rally champion Peter Hommel totaled his TT and died last month.
Now Audi is responding to a wave of consumer concern with a voluntary recall to retrofit the cars with the latest braking technology called ESP, or Electronic Stability Program. It's the second stage in a recall program that earlier upgraded the car's suspensions and installed a rear spoiler.
Restoring the luster to the premium brand sports compact and regaining the trust of leery car fanatics will set the company back an estimated $75 million, Audi said, as company chairman Franz-Josef Paefgen tried to soothe drivers' shattered nerves.
"I wish to apologize formally to our TT customers for the uncertainty which has emerged in the last few months," Paefgen said. "Our initiative is intended to put an end to the uncertainty."
Audi is still haunted by memories of the sudden acceleration allegations that nearly extinguished the brand in American markets during the 1980s. Investigators eventually cleared the carmaker of wrongdoing, but Audi is moving quickly this time to refit the $31,000 car despite its claim there are no design or manufacturing flaws.
"They're trying to make the thing idiot-proof," said Larry Webster, the technical editor for Car & Driver magazine. "You're going over 100 miles per hour -- you need to be trained."
The first of five fatal crashes happened late last summer. And after several more nonfatal crashes, Audi announced in October an offer to replace the suspension and install a rear spoiler at no charge to all TT customers worldwide.
But with three more deadly crashes reported in January, Audi stepped up the pace. All told, Audi says it is investigating roughly 55 crashes -- all of which, including the five fatal ones, occurred only in Germany. All five fatalities apparently occurred after the drivers pushed their cars past 110 miles an hour.
Beginning next month, customers can have the ESP system -- which comes standard on all new Audi TT's -- installed in their older models for about $325. The new technology brakes each wheel independently to prevent the tail end of the speedy compact from swinging out around curves and pulling the car off the road.
The hitch is that it's only available to customers who can bring their car to Audi's production plant outside Munich, Germany.
Company spokesman Axel Engel was adamant that the series of crashes was symptomatic of German driving culture and shouldn't spark alarm elsewhere.
"This is completely a German issue. We don't have any complaints from anywhere else in the world," Engel said. "How people drive their car is something we can't control."