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 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 via the messaging—key phrases listed here are precision and readability, in addition to a re-emphasis on our previous good friend, “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 crucial for making our model really distinctive as soon as once more,” Audi’s Chief Inventive Officer Massimo Frascella explains. “It’s the philosophy behind each resolution we make, and we intention to use its ideas throughout your entire 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 want. It’s a terrific wanting 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.
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 car (although he additionally labored on the fairly extra polarising 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 aluminium, and there’s a robust new vertical entrance grille form with a slim however highly effective gentle signature that echoes the four-ring emblem. 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 counsel a extra emotionally charged, mid-engined configuration. We’re informed the window-less, slatted look will make manufacturing, the brand new automobile slated to reach in 2027.
Courtesy of Audi
