ooooIYKYK, ISSUE #0013
I’m going to let you in on a little secret, a hidden part of this website that I have shared with practically no one. You can’t click there from the navigation bar yet, though I’ll add that once it’s a bit more populated. I’m calling this section the ooooIYKYK Archive, a reference project and sister site to the ooooIYKYK blog – influenced and inspired by sites like Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary, the goal is to flush it out with basic background information, photos, old press releases, links and more about the Audi brand. The idea here is to make the Archive a reference for those seeking further information, something I feel the automotive space has been lacking.
I guess I should admit, having a reference is a bit of an obsession. Any visitor to my office will see a robust archive of books, periodicals and photographs. There’s a new vintage set of Audi Quartz concept photos released in the 1980s by Pininfarina that just arrived today, procured by me weeks ago from a European automobilia auction.
I come by it honestly. My mom is a retired librarian and consummate archivist, so it probably runs in my genes. As a kid reading comic books and bored at school, I used to enjoy unconventional casual learning such as picking up German phrases from one of my favorite superheroes – Nightcrawler who Stan Lee or whomever was writing the X-Men at the time would have drop vocab in that fictional hero’s native tongue.
In as much, I’ve also enjoyed dropping nomenclature in content I create. For instance, if you’re an Audi aficionado you probably don’t need this site to know that the new Audi A5/S5 and Q5/SQ5 models are known as B10. But, did you know the designation for the A5/S5 is also type FU? While giggle worthy and perhaps ironic given the charged nature of EV adoption, learning that code is something folks who venture down the brand aficionado rabbit hole will eventually want to learn. So, a tool is needed… an online master reference.
The idea, for me at least, goes way back… literally. Pull up Fourtitude, my first Audi-focused website, and you won’t find much because years ago it was rolled into its sister website VWvortex. Call it up on the Internet Wayback Machine though and you’ll find the remnants of a large and robust photo gallery with key folder names identifying chassis and platform designations. That this reference met its demise is a shame, especially when people like friends on the Audi design team in Ingolstadt would mention to me how important the site had become for them. In fact, it had become what it was almost unintentionally. That gallery section was only ever meant as a logical way of filing photos.
In my time at Audi Club North America, the thought of creating an improved reference continued to gnaw at me. When I built out discussion forums for the club’s new website, sections that haven’t yet launched at the time of this writing, I populated them with production years and chassis designations just as I had in those galleries, hoping to utilize the club’s areas for model-specific chat as a great way to teach aficionados the nomenclature or operate as a reference for those of us who don’t have all these codes or years memorized. Beyond that, my time at the club largely focused on producing its print magazine, online content and, for a period, running the organization itself. There wasn’t much time for such a pandora’s box as a proper brand reference archive. Given that club is geographically only focused on North America anyway, it probably wasn’t the right conduit for such a project.
Now that I’m back to publishing for myself again, I can pick and choose what I focus on with no other team members coming at me with their own needs or prioritized print magazine publishing deadline to meet. Thus, the call of the reference has returned, and so I’ve decided to begin building it out. It’ll be a learning process because I’m not really aware of any preexisting paradigm here.
Architecturally, the archive will use the same WordPress-based site and graphic theme already used on the main ooooIYKYK.com Audi-focused blog. That’ll keep it familiar, but rather than telling stories or reporting, this new subsite will drill down on reference points. Content will be centered around data, nomenclature, links, photography and press releases where press releases and photos are still accessible.
Construction of this archive is going to be a long and ongoing process. I spent months building out those Fourtitude galleries alone, writing scripts to batch edit and format whole galleries, properly organize and determine a structure that made sense. And after that work was completed, they continued to grow – forward as the brand marched into the future, or backward as new resources came available. The evolution continued until the day I stopped working on them.
This new Archive model contains more information, requiring more data and care than simply formatting photos. So, have patience. Right now, it is my goal to add in new models as they launch, then work back through the archive with a focus on what I think will prove the most interesting to the audience. For instance, flushing out the C8 RS 6 Avant section is one of the first things I’ve tackled. I further add sections as I have spare time and have set a personal goal to add something new on a daily basis.
Using a blog structure rather than a Wiki will also prove interesting. Wikis are built for set reference, while blogs tend to work along a timeline. I’ll need to adjust for that. So, for example, I’m backdating model content to the date things actually produced. If you head on over to the road car main page for what I have come to call the ‘Audi postwar’ period covering the brand’s rebirth after the war until its switch to the current alphanumeric naming structure introduced in the 1990s, you’ll find the Audi 50 section is live.
Why start with the 50? It helps that Audi Tradition just celebrated the car’s 50th anniversary last year, so assets around the model were robust. In this case, I dated the Audi 50 page as May 16 (the day I built the page), 1974 (the year the car began production). If I can determine the car’s actual start of production or auto show debut, then I’ll further adjust the publishing date. Both of these starts of production and auto show debut dates are something I plan to include in the reference layout, so the date of the page is just a marker to use WordPress’ publishing dates as a chronological timeline.
In time, I’ll flush out better options on the navigation and subpages to make finding content easier. Until then, the tag system has been designed to be robust in order to help users navigate the site more effectively.
So, have you got a section you’d like to see me tackle with higher priority? Have a suggestion for how this might be improved? If so, drop your suggestion in the comments.
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING EVENTS
25-29 – GT World Challenge / Intercontinental GT Challenge / GT World Challenge Europe / British GT Championship / GT4 European Series / FFSA French GT, Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium – GT3, GT4
27 – TCR Europe, Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, Misano Adriatico, Italy – TCR
27-29 – F1 MSC Cruises Austrian Grand Prix, Red Bull Ring, Austria – F1
29 – Coppa Italia Turismo, Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, Misano Adriatico, Italy – TCR
30-01 – The Greenwich Concours, Greenwich, CT 🇺🇸 – Concours
31 – Audi Club Tennessee at German Cars, Motorcycles & Coffee, Bavarian Bierhaus, Nashville, TN 🇺🇸 – Enthusiast Car Show
01 – Audi Club Golden Gate Teen Driver Safety Clinic, Fairfield, CA 🇺🇸 – Teen Driving Clinic
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1.) Tell your friends.
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If you’re a business operating in the Audi space and open to underwrite quality content promoting the Audi brand, its cars and its owner enthusiasts, then consider underwriting ooooIYKYK. Elevating this project to a higher level of operation will not only augment the coverage and capabilities, they will directly and authentically associate your business as a patron of the Audi enthusiast space. If interested, please email george.achorn@ooooIYKYK.com for more information.