Sensible proportions, lovely flowing side side view and very tasteful Audi history referencing rear. The restraint is refreshing.
The front though resembles a sad walrus face with those vertical corner intakes - and an under dimensioned grill. As if the former JLR designer had to prove he can bring in that Jaguar 00 flavor?
Overall a nice “Audi Design is back” statement
Very nice concept. Beautiful curvature and proportion. Love the design cues similar to Auto Union type C, just like how Rosemeyer version also did.
I like most of it. The only bit that I’m not very fond of is the front.Something about the way it’s angled towards the centre, the proportions of the grill, and that razor sharp edge of the side panels… It feels unresolved to me. One good thing I will say about it (and it applies to the rest of the car), is that it captures very well the essence of Audi, of what we’ve come to expect that an Audi should look like.
Everything else I have to say about it is positive. I love the rear end, The smooth surfacing, the proportions, how all the surfaces meet in that clean sharp edge. The way they handled the roof, and the pillars. Flawless. Finally we see someone releasing a car that is not all about vents, and spoilers and intentional conflicting geometry.
Architectural cues is clearly a trend here (as it was on the jag). That front end has a bit of it, but also the interior door handles, the wheels…
Lets hope others follow this example.
Indeed. It is more refined than the Jaguar. And it is “appropriate” at Audi. (In German “angemessen”.) For me “Angemessenheit” is one of the main criteria for finding a good and successful aesthetic for a product.
The very strict Bauhaus reduction of volume, line graphic and decor is very Germanic and very Audi. It is not very Jaguar. If you want to know more about my take on the Jaguar 00 Concept you might have a look at youtube. German content creator “Strombock”, invited me as resident designer on his twitch/youtube stream about the Jag some time ago: We start around the 1 hour mark.
(act of shameless self promotion)
Concerning the Jag I did find the analogy to architecture rather fitting. My impression being, that a lovely old pub, sitting in an art deco building, which had fallen out of fashion, was bulldozered for a trendy “woke” cyber café in a brutalist building, that will fall out of fashion rather fast, itself.
The key to Audi pulling of a somewhat related concept successfully is in the connection to the heritage and cultural connotations of the brand and in the quality of proportion and detail execution of the concept.
Say “Tugendhat” :
Musing over it some more during some hours of Autobahn driving I ended up having 3 more questions:
Do you think this concept already devalues the A5 and A6 models, that have just arrived during this year, sporting rather soft and bulbous forms with feminine ornamentation
How successfully will the new “radical simplicity” translate into the whole line-up of AUDI cars?
Can the sharp creases and radical reduction be done in large scale production, without landing in the Ford “new edge” ditch of 25 years ago? (The original TT team went to Dearborn.)
Let’s look into the interior on frivolous friday.
Today it somehow feels very “greige” in its wool cloth.
They are discontinuing the A5 coupe?? A tragedy. The original was so good. I think Da’Silva called it his favorite car in his portfolio. I look at the new A5 and its like a nice Ford Edge/Fusion. Blah.
I am not a fan of the rectangle grill on the concept but the geometric purity, quality of proportion, reductionist elements all make sense here.
I would assume the TT is laying out a new direction for Audi, not just a single model. After all, the original TT set a recipe for the line of product in the early ‘00s.
It’s a shame the auto translate is so annoying in youtube, I was ready to watch your discussion!
Impressive how they first made the Concept C and then completely butchered it to create this messy monstrosity… >_<
Looks like a Lamborghini now 
Human for scale (from here)
Yep. If I’m not mistaken it’s a Lamborghini with an Audi concept c body kit? To be fair, I didn’t read much about it, lost all interest as soon as I saw a fossil fuel exhaust pipe.
“R8 in proportions” - smaller than I expected but maybe Audi chief-guy is very tall.
Interior is anachronistic. Not bad!
Bizarro-world Da Silva. I don’t like seeing into those nostrils. The side is cool, at least there’s some surfacing and attention to proportions
very Bauhaus in an architectural way. But not a moving object.
I need to have a deep think about what is happening in the design world.
The Alpine A390 is very fluidly dynamic, as are some of the Chinese.
But Luce and this are very staid to say the least.
I wonder were this is going…
