Automotive firms 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 hard-top, the Idea C is a “progressive interpretation” of the corporate’s legacy, says Audi—and it isn’t arduous to see the TT has factored fairly closely in that.
However as you decide your method by way of the messaging—key phrases listed here are precision and readability, in addition to a re-emphasis on our previous pal, “Vorsprung durch Technik”—this looks 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 the moment 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’s Chief Artistic Officer Massimo Frascella explains. “It’s the philosophy behind each determination we make, and we purpose to use its ideas throughout the complete 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 mild on coherence and drama. The Idea C isn’t fairly a first-principles machine, but it surely undoubtedly strips issues again and seeks to stoke some good old style flames of want. It’s a terrific trying factor within the flesh: stocky, strong, 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 when it comes to design creativity and manufacturing approach.
Courtesy of Audi
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 must be famous, is an Italian who rose to prominence as Head of Design at Jaguar Land Rover, and is credited with the present Vary Rover, a universally admired automobile (although he additionally labored on the reasonably extra polarising Jaguar Sort 00.) An absence of decoration and dedication to what automobile designers are wont to name “monolithic” surfaces are evidently two of his emblems.
That a lot is actually obvious right here. The Idea C’s taut, machined look suggests one thing carved from an enormous billet of aluminium, and there’s a robust new vertical entrance grille form with a slim however highly effective mild signature that echoes the four-ring brand. We reckon it’s finest appreciated from an elevated place above the rear three-quarters, although. There’s no rear window, minimal ornament and slender LED tail-lights, with three slats within the rear deck to recommend a extra emotionally charged, mid-engined configuration. We’re advised the window-less, slatted look will make manufacturing, the brand new automobile slated to reach in 2027.
Courtesy of Audi
