Audi’s History on the Big Screen

13th September 2019 Comments (0) Lifestyle Like

Directors have a tendency to include large brands within their movies. One brand that’s no stranger to a starring role is Audi. Along with Vindis, an Audi dealership who offer an Audi service plan, we look at some of the largest features which Audi vehicles have had.

Marvel

The champion of the film industry, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s franchise of films which has made over £20 billion in total from its 23 films released thus far. In recent years they have had a huge fanbase and success especially from the releases of Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War.

Audi has had numerous features in in the MCU, there is at least one Audi to be spotted in every release in Iron Man trilogy — a 2007 R8 and S5 B8 can be found in the first movie, a 2009 A8 LD3 and 2010 R8 Spyder are spotted in the sequel, and a 2012 S7 and R8 e-tron both feature in Iron Man 3. The R8 e-tron also turned up at a VIP screening of Iron Man 3 at London’s Leicester Square a few days before the movie’s general release!

Captain America: Civil War has a similar amount of Audi vehicles as seen in the whole of the Iron Man series. Within its two hours and 27 minutes runtime, you can see the 2017 Audi R8 V10 Plus, the 2017 SQ7, the 2017 A4, the 2016 A7 Sportback and even the Audi prologue concept car — a vehicle hailed as “a ‘signature car’ for Audi” by Prof. Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, Board Member for Development at Audi.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is also a place to look for a couple Audis. This includes an Audi R8, A6 Hybrid, and A3 all hidden amongst the ongoing action. Beyond Ultron, the Audi TTS Roadster, R8 Spyder, Q7 and A8 all appeared during Spider-Man Homecoming — the first standalone film by our favourite web-slinger since he became involved in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It’s not just the official MCU that displays an Audi. An R8 Spyder is found in the movie about Marvel comic book character Wolverine — the titular protagonist’s actor Hugh Jackman even turned up at the London Leicester Square premiere of the film in the same car — and an A8 plays a role in the 2015 big screen edition of Fantastic Four.

The Fifty Shades of Audi

Audi cars feature in the Fifty Shades trilogy, gaining screen time in all three instalments of the series. The multiple appearances are down to a brand partnership between Audi and Universal Pictures — a deal that has obviously benefitted Audi given the trilogy amassed over $1 billion.

In Fifty Shades of Grey, the first of the trilogy, viewers can spot an Audi S8 D4, a 2017 S7 and a R8 Spyder. In the sequel Fifty Shades Darker, a set of Audis Q7 cars and an A3 took centre stage, with both the R8 and Q7 returning when the franchise wrapped up with Fifty Shades Freed.

Mission: Impossible II

Fans of action films will be just getting over the rush of Mission: Impossible – Fallout from last year, marking over 22 years since the original was released to cinemas. But instead of focusing on the most recent release, let’s look at the movie from 2000, Mission: Impossible 2, in order to appreciate how key Audi’s feature has been in the hit series. Hunt had an assignment to find and destroy a biological weapon referred to as ‘Chimera’. This eventually leads to a thrilling car chase with a thief named Nyah Nordoff-Hall. Hunt is behind the wheel of a Porsche Boxster and Nordoff-Hall tries to hold him off while driving an Audi TT — suffice to say that the pursuit between the two German-made cars into oncoming traffic is filled with nail-biting and edge-of-your-seat drama!

Fast and Furious

Fast and Furious fans would be… well, furious, if we didn’t mention this series on the list. After all, this is a series which features street racing, heists and espionage using all manners of vehicles and has so far spanned eight main series entries and two additional short films — grossing in excess of $5 billion to date!

The series has even received a spinoff movie called Hobbs & Shaw earlier in 2019 thanks to its popularity. Now there’s even a worldwide live show titled Fast & Furious Live, which includes stunt driving, projection mapping and pyrotechnics.

Through the main series of films, and specifically in Furious 7 — the film which saw fan favourite end his role in the series due to the actor, Paul Walker being losing his life while the movie was being filmed, and tugged at the heartstrings of millions—you can see Audi appearing in the franchise. It was an Audi R8 that makes an appearance in Furious 7. It competes in an exciting quarter mile race against a classic Plymouth Barracuda in the early moments of the film.

I, ROBOT

Every car previously mentioned can be found driving the streets. This next film, however, showcases a very surprising Audi vehicle. Car enthusiasts were given the opportunity to see what Audi cars may look like in the future — the year 2035, to be exact.

The Audi RSQ was the name of the concept vehicle represented in the film and was the first occasion which Audi had developed a car only for use in a movie. The vehicle that boasted piloted driving allowed Will Smith’s character Del Spooner to enable the car to take control of the driving. We are only just starting to see the auto-driving concept in real life, as seen in the new Tesla vehicles.

Sideways and diagonal driving is one feature of the RSQ not achieved by any vehicle in existence yet though! The use of balls instead of wheels was a quirky design touch that hasn’t yet made it to the real roads either.

So, how was the car recognised as being an Audi if it didn’t exist? Typical single-frame grille and the presence of those four instantly recognisable silver rings let viewers clearly know that this car was without question an Audi.

We’re very proud to bring you this feature in association with Vindis. For more features, please pay a visit to our lifestyle page.