Audi Audi Quattro Concept in the driving report
01/12/2011
If you orient yourself to famous role models, you would do well not to do it in a flashy way, in other words: with the mallet method, to try. Or to put it another way: retro design as an act of restoring old formal idioms has meanwhile been frowned upon by designers in the same way as furnishing a home from an antique chest.
I nsofar, Wolfgang Egger, 47, head of the external Audi design office in Munich, and his colleagues who work independently from the Audi design department in Ingolstadt have one Found a coherent approach to provide the successor to the famous - now iconic, 306 hp Audi Sport Quattro from 1984 - a befitting transition into the beginning of the 21st century.
Study has design quotes from the original
Anyone who can spontaneously discover the rebirth of the evolutionary stage of the Quattro Coupé in the new concept study either has clairvoyant talent and /or is with the intelligent ones Familiar with design strategies that can subtly create very believable references to the past - by adapting type-specific design elements. As in this case: The 'sharpness of the face' (Egger) with the large black cooling air openings, the horizontal air slots above the stylish carbon-made Audi rings and the asymmetrical arrangement of the air intake opening on the bonnet.
While the recessed rear window on the C-pillar can only be deciphered as a trace element of the design created a good quarter of a century ago, the horizontally oriented rear with the black horizontal stripes shows a strong visual similarity to the original. The typical kink in the A-pillar and - even more clearly - the strongly contoured C-pillar also show significant agreement. In its typical course, this merges into a flat roof and thus also creates the compact stoutness with the reinterpretation of the Quattro sports model, with which the model caused a sensation at the time.
The study basis is the Audi RS5
The rebirth of the rigid, black rubber spoiler in the form of a carbon wing that automatically extends out of its designer bed does not look like a foreign body in the one that is richly blessed by design quotations Body. That also clears up consistently with an optical flaw that the ancestor in wholeIt was noted in a remarkable way: The previously long body overhangs - especially at the front end - have given way to extremely shortened ends, which clearly underlines the compactness of the concept car based on the current Audi RS5. Compared to the current four-seater sports coupé, the wheelbase of the study has been shortened by 150 millimeters to 2.60 meters and the roof height has been lowered by 40 millimeters.
Compared to the dainty 15-inch wheels of the ancestor, the modern The 20-inch model of the one-off piece built at Quattro GmbH in Heilbronn looks like huge rollers, which gives the aluminum body even more sturdiness. The obligation to have to implant a drivetrain analogous to the prototype that does justice to the famous Quattro principle in general and the Sport Quattro specification in particular, turned out to be a relatively easy undertaking. Because in the Audi kit, all the necessary components are available on the cutting edge of technology.
Concept vehicle with five-cylinder engine
The five-cylinder turbo from the current Audi TT RS, which is installed lengthways at the front and now generates 408 hp and a torque of 480 Newton meters, is followed by a manually operated one Six-speed manual transmission, from which the torque is passed on to all four drive wheels in perfect Quattro fashion via a crown gear center differential. A modern dual clutch transmission would be significantly better for the street athlete painted in Col de Turini white. However, since new, convincing evidence of lightweight construction competence was to be presented, one did not want to burden the weight account unnecessarily in the early conception phase. This means that the study is practically on par with the Sport Quattro from 1984 - and by the way undercuts the current Audi TT RS by an impressive 200 kilograms. With a power-to-weight ratio of just 3.2 kilograms per hp, the 408 hp five-cylinder Sport Quattro could easily get involved in a promising race with the 525 hp Audi R8 V10.
While the overall length and width and so that the height of the sports coupé is largely based on the technical status quo - see Audi TT RS engine and Audi RS 5 drivetrain - completely new worlds open up inside the two-seater coupé. The conspicuous simplicity in the cockpit follows modern minimalism: loops as door openers and air conditioning are not mutually exclusive, as are the exquisitely finished, tucked seat covers made of the finest leather and helmet compartments instead of the rear seat bench.
The ones within easy reach behind the Rows of switches arranged vertically on the steering wheel are just as convincing in their practicality as the new, visor-like, fulldigitized instrument panel. According to Carsten Monnerjan, the designer responsible for the interior, the cockpit's simplicity and manageability were the declared aim. As a pleasing side aspect, the now usual switch cluster could be reduced to a minimum.
Study as a harbinger of future models
The study thus takes on in its simple elegance, the manageable size and the not exaggerated Acting motorization anticipates something of what may soon be accepted as a broad consensus - concise, light and technically highly specialized vehicle concepts. It would therefore be extremely regrettable if Quattro GmbH did not immediately receive the starting signal for production of the new Audi Sport Quattro.
Even if under the Californian sun, despite the sheriff's escort, neither the study object nor the one in perfect original condition Ancestors could hardly be driven faster than 100 km /h and the maximum achievable lateral accelerations on Beach Boulevard in Malibu aptly resembled those of a Hollywood swing: In view of the coherent concept, the fact that we are dealing with an offer that is extremely convincing in terms of driving dynamics is a fact not the slightest doubt.
