The Audi Quattro Concept was first revealed in 2010, in Paris, to mark the 30th anniversary of Audi’s famous, rally revolutionising, Quattro all-wheel drive machine. Now after three further years of development, reports from Germany suggest that the sporty Quattro Concept may be production ready by 2015, 35 years after the 1980 original.
For those of you who are unaware, the Audi Sport Quattro was an all-wheel drive, two-door coupé that dominated the World Rally Championship between 1982 and 1985 with 23 victories. A road car was based on the rally racer. That road car has developed a cult-like following ever since due to its rarity.
In concept form the new Quattro is slated to offer 300 kW of power from a fettled and beefed up 5-cylinder TFSI engine as you’d find in the TT RS and RS3. In those iterations the engine produces 250 kW. Expect an Audi S tronic double-clutch gearbox and permanent four-wheel drive. Audi also said it would hit 100 km/h in just 3.9 seconds, beating even the 4.1 second run of the V10-powered 5.2-litre FSI R8 supercar.
From looking at the concept car, what is clear is that it will have a shorter wheelbase than the current super coupé in the Audi stable, the RS5. This must surely earmark it as the starting point for a potential Audi TT replacement? Perhaps not as an end product, of which a 300 kW version will be the halo (like the current TT RS), but in how it will slot into the vast Audi product range.
It looks great, absolutely perfect in fact and we can’t wait for it, but if we had to offer Audi some advice between now and 2015, we would tell them to fit it with a manual gearbox and make it as light as the competition car on which it’s originally named. Finally, a car with the famed Audi Quattro badge on it. No pressure!
