Audi A2 returns

The show car, which has been penned by A8 and Q5 designer, Chris Winkelmann, will showcase Audi's second coming of the A2 wonder car and could see the once-derided nameplate emerging as its own sub brand.

While the original A2 (pictured) failed due to falling fuel prices and the enormous cost of building its space-frame aluminium chassis, the new A2 will reach production by 2015 to spearhead Audi's electric-car drive.

Sources insist the car will sit well apart from the more-conventional A1 and A3 models and will be positioned at a higher-priced, more-technical car that will never use an internal-combustion engine.

"It will only be an electric car – it will only ever be sold as an electric car – and so that means we can design the whole thing from the ground up as an electric car," insiders boasted.

"Most electric cars are built on rehashed architecture, so they are inherently compromised, but the A2 will come back as a pure electric machine.

"The idea is so popular in here and it's gathered so much excitement that it could even spawn a family of A2 electric models and become almost a stand-alone brand," he enthused.

With Audi buying offshore wind turbines to offset the energy used in building a pilot fleet of natural gas-powered A3s recently, it seems clear that Audi will pursue the same strategy to keep the A2 production program carbon neutral.

It will also remain relatively light, thanks to its space-frame alloy structure, and there were no calls to make it out of cheaper steel, even though the unwieldy cost of the original A2's chassis saw it culled four years ahead of schedule.

"The space frame is the core of the car and the core of the idea and it always was," one source insisted.

"We have moved on from the PQ35 (the architecture beneath both the Polo and the A1) architecture for it and it has its own to accommodate its electric needs.

"It will be an all-aluminium space-frame chassis because that's the philosophy of the A2 and it was a cult car, so we will continue that. We will hold that USP in the new model."

The original, light-weight A2 arrived in 1999 to great fanfare, only to prove a sales flop, despite offering a 1.2-litre version which claimed just 3.0L/100km in fuel consumption through pioneering start-stop technology, amongst other things.

Today, though, the more-conventional 1.4-litre, four-cylinder versions of the A2 are still highly sought-after in the second hand market, often fetching more than Audi asked when the cars were new.

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