IN THIS FEATURE Money well spent? Audi's ghost in the machine Government gets involved with a Skoda Edsel the eyesore The Excellence and the All-aggro

More recently still, in 1999, Audi offered to modify its TT coupe because of complaints from German customers that they could lose control at high speed. Audi never acknowledged any problem nor did it officially recall the car but it still modified the suspension and fitted a rear spoiler free of charge to all customers who asked which, as it turned out, was most of them. It was done, says Audi, not because there was anything wrong with the car but to maintain consumer confidence.

It's a lesson Audi had learned the hard way. In the 1980s it sold a car called the 5000 in North America which gained a reputation for 'unintended acceleration'. What would happen, said its alleged victims, is that you'd climb aboard, start the engine and then, all by itself, the car would go berserk until something hard enough stopped it.

Audi 5000: owners complained of phantom acceleration

The phenomenon was not new. Indeed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had investigated of 2700 cases of unintended acceleration from over a dozen marques and every one concluded that driver error was to blame. So Audi stuck its ground - it did not believe its cars would suddenly go mad and there was evidence, such as bent accelerator pedals, that customers were actually standing on the wrong pedal. But if ever there was a Pyrrhic victory, this was it. Consumer confidence in Audi evaporated, sales dived and took years to return. It seems the customer is always right, even when the stupid schmuck is demonstrably wrong.