PARIS SHOW: Cut down quattro homage to original

2010 PARIS MOTOR SHOW NEWS SPECIAL

German powerhouse Audi is using the Paris Motor Show for much more than the serious business of its version of an eco-friendly hybrid future.

While its e-tron Spyder might be stealing the headlines, Audi design teams fought and won an internal contest for Paris to design this 30th anniversary homage to its original ground-breaking quattro coupe.

Based on a cut-down version of the RS5 coupe, the quattro concept runs a five-cylinder turbocharged engine and, naturally enough, quattro all-wheel-drive to remain true to the basic layout of the original.

The quattro debuted at the 1980 Geneva Motor Show and went on to become a rallying legend. Thus Audi's bosses briefed its two design chiefs, Stefan Seilaff and Wolfgang Egger, to go head-to-head to revive its spirit 30 years later.

The six-speed manual quattro concept has nothing to do with 'green' this or 'eco' that, but could provide pointers to the future design direction of Audi's production coupes.

With the Egger design winning out, the ex-Alfa Romeo design boss chopped 150mm out of the RS5's wheelbase and the roofline of the quattro coupe is 40mm lower as well.

A pure two-seater, the entire body has been made of either aluminium or carbon-fibre, which has pulled its weight down to 1300kg. While Audi isn't claiming any performance figures for the quattro concept, it would be faster in a straight line than a TTRS, with which it shares the basic 250kW engine.

While Audi claims the savage cut from the RS5's wheelbase was to reduce weight and to add in agility, it was realistically to give Egger's team the chunky, hard-edged stance it was looking for.

It has also had its rear overhang cut by 200mm, so it's a squat critter that is just 4.28 metres long, 1.86 metres wide and 1.33 metres high. With a 2.6 metre wheelbase, the quattro concept sits on 20-inch wheels and uses the same style of large wheelarch flares as the original 1980 car.

The 1984 version of the rally car, considered by Egger to be the epoch of the quattro's rallying days, used a vent cut into the right-hand side of the bonnet to let the inline, five-cylinder turbo engine breath better, so he's incorporated that alongside an enormous air inlet scoop.

But he's changed tack completely around the nose, because it's not longer coping with having its engine sitting entirely ahead of the front wheels. There's now a huge, single-framed grille, with LED headlights and a front splitter that Audi insists offers strong hints about future production-car designs.

Inside, the quattro coupe has a floating dashboard with an independent centre console. Audi has coloured the cockpit in a combination of carbon-fibre black and rally brown.

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