The Concept C Is the All-Electric Sports Car Kick-Starting Audi’s Design Future Leave a comment

Automobile corporations love a mission assertion. With the arrival of the Idea C, Audi’s new one is crystal clear: “radical simplicity.” An all-electric two-seater with a retractable folding onerous prime, the Idea C is a “progressive interpretation” of the corporate’s legacy, says Audi—and it is not onerous to see that the TT has factored fairly closely in that.

However as you decide your manner by way of the messaging—key phrases listed below are precision and readability, in addition to a reemphasis on our outdated good friend “Vorsprung durch Technik”—this appears like a considerable reset after a interval of aesthetic drift. This isn’t only a piece of conceptual eye sweet, then: It’s Audi partaking fight mode in an trade at present beset with challenges.

“Our imaginative and prescient is a name to motion for the entire firm—and is important for making our model actually distinctive as soon as once more,” Audi chief inventive officer Massimo Frascella explains. “It’s the philosophy behind each determination we make, and we intention to use its rules throughout all the group. We name it ‘the Radical Subsequent.’”

Let’s begin with the automobile itself. Though the e-tron GT set the bar excessive, Audi’s mannequin vary has been gentle on coherence and drama. The Idea C isn’t fairly a first-principles machine, nevertheless it positively strips issues again and seeks to stoke some good old school flames of need. It’s a terrific trying factor within the flesh: stocky, stable, and charismatic. Audi CEO Gernot Döllner, in cost for precisely two years, personally pushed for a brand new sports activities automobile; Frascella used it to push the boundaries by way of design creativity and manufacturing approach.

It’s additionally one for marque historians: Though there’s nothing explicitly retro right here, the Thirties Auto Union Sort C Grand Prix automobile, the early-noughties Rosemeyer idea, and extra pertinently the unique TT are all within the combine, as is Bauhaus and German modernism.

Frascella, it ought to be famous, is an Italian who rose to prominence as head of design at Jaguar Land Rover, and he’s credited with the present Vary Rover, a universally admired car (although he additionally labored on the moderately extra polarizing Jaguar Sort 00.) A scarcity of decoration and dedication to what automobile designers are wont to name “monolithic” surfaces are evidently two of his emblems.

That a lot is definitely obvious right here. The Idea C’s taut, machined look suggests one thing carved from an enormous billet of aluminum, and there’s a powerful new vertical front-grille form with a slim however highly effective gentle signature that echoes the four-ring emblem. We reckon it’s greatest appreciated from an elevated place above the rear three-quarters, although. There’s no rear window, minimal ornament, and slender LED taillights, with three slats within the rear deck to recommend a extra emotionally charged, mid-engined configuration. We’re advised the windowless, slatted look will make manufacturing, and the brand new automobile is slated to reach in 2027.