Audi’s supercar future
Audi’s icons, the TT and R8, are set to be reborn. We have the inside story on the vision, the challenges and the delays
Audi is close to making a final decision on how besttoreplacetheTT,nowthatitsquarter-century is up. It’s been a long, complicated process, and a decision Audi must get right or risk having a line-up short of a high-performance halo model just as it enters the high-profile arena of Formula 1 for the first time.
Our inside sources tell us four options are still in play, all of them drawing heavily on one or more of the plethora of acclaimed concepts displayed but not turned into production cars over the years. Many of those concepts in turn draw on the game-changing 1980 Quattro and 1998’s original TT.
The most likely outcome –but certainly not the only possibility –is a more expensive, more powerful TT-style 2+2 electric coupe, drawing on EV expertise from around the VW Group. We’re now looking at 2026 (that’s when Audi enters F1) at the very earliest for the newcomer to be launched, but more likely 2027 or 2028.
The car that could hit the market first is a performance hybrid, but that idea is currently out of favour. More likely is a fully-electric coupe that combines elements of the zero-emissions next-generation Porsche Boxster/Cayman with the more advanced E3 1.2 software that’s also used in the imminent electric-only Porsche Macan (see page 12).
TIME TO TURN THOSE DREAMS INTO A NEW HALO CAR TO LIFT AUDI’S IMAGE
Although the prospects of a super-hybrid two-seat replacement for the R8 – the supercar co-developed with Lamborghini – are currently not bright, it has repeatedly been given serious consideration, and has not been firmly rejected. The future of the e-Tron GT, the current electric coupe twinned with the Porsche Taycan, is also part of the Jenga tower of interdependent decisions that recently-arrived Audi CEO Gernot Döllner must make.
Döllner is aVW Group veteran whose previous roles include head of concept development at Porsche and group-wide strategy. Time for him to not just dream big but to turn those dreams into a new car that will lift Audi’s image in much the same way as the Quattro and TT did in their respective eras.
The front runners for the vacant role of Audi flagship are, we understand, all-electric coupes referred to internally as the Avus Evo and the TT Evo. They would use different versions of the VW Group’s SSP electric architecture, most likely SSP Sport for the TT Evo and SSP 61 for the Avus Evo.
We gather that Döllner’s preferred option is the Avus Evo, a new sporting EV with looks inspired by the Avus Quattro concept from 1991, designed by JMays and Martin Smith.
Kicked off by Ferdinand Piëch,
