Audi quattro … the name and the car dominated the world rally scene for years. The first Sport quattro appeared in 1983 and with 225 kW of power and four-wheel drive there was nothing that stood in its way.
An Audi Sport quattro even conquered Pike’s Peak in 1987.
Since then Audi have moved on to other things and the Sport quattro has faded into history but now Audi have revived the name with a stunning plug-in hybrid drive coupe that produces more than twice the power of the old Sports quattro.
The body
The original Audi Sports quattro was a boxy short-wheel based little monster that was definitely eye-catching for its time. Back in those days the box was THE design but of course these days the box is so dated s to be almost quaint so while Audi may have revived the Sports quattro name they certainly haven’t revived the design.
The box has been replaced by a sleek low-slung design that is just as eye-catching as the original Sport quattro. This concept in 4,602mm long, 1,964mm wide and 1,386mm high. It has a wheelbase of 2,784mm.
A feature of the Audi Sport quattro concept are the headlights that feature Audi’s new Matrix LED technology. This technology uses individual LEDs working in tandem with lenses and reflectors to always deliver the right amount of illumination.
The door handles on the quattro concept are also interesting. They sit flush with the door but extend when … as Audi puts it …”a hand approaches”.
The passenger cell combines high-strength steel panels and cast aluminium for structural elements while the other panels are made from either carbon fibre-reinforced polymer or aluminium.
The engine
The Audi Sport quattro features a plujg-in hybrid drive that produces 515 kW of power and 800 Nm of torque. All that power is transferred to the rear wheels via a 8-speed tiptronic auto transmission and a sports diff.
Audi suggests that fuel consumption for this vehicle will be around 2.5L/100km which is rather amazing considering that the combustion engine in this vehicle is a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8.
However that engine is fitted with a cylinder on demand system that shuts down four of the eight cylinders when the load on the engine does not require full power and there is also a stop-start system that shuts the engine down completely when the vehicle is stopped in traffic or at lights.
And located between the V8 and the transmission is a 110 kW electric motor that is charged from a liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery that will give the Sport quattro range of 50km running only on electric power.
Drivers have the ability to choose between three different modes … electric, hybrid and sports. In sports mode the car operates on the combustion engine alone.
When both the electric motor and the V8 combustion engine are configured to operate together in hybrid mode the Audi Sports quattro lives up to the image that goes with the name and can hit 100kmh from a standing start in just 3.7 seconds and has a top speed of 305kmh.
The interior
The interior of the car is all about the driver and all important instruments and displays are all clearly visible and some of the information can also be shown as virtual 3D displays
Perhaps too much has been done to simplify the dashboard. Just look at all the controls that are now located on the steering wheel and think about how you would handle that at high speed or in heavy traffic.
The bottom line
Will we see the Audi Sports quattro concept go into production? We just might because there’s not a lot of technology in this car that’s ground-breaking … the headlight technology is reportedly going to appear in the coming mid-life upgrade to the Audi A8 … so perhaps next year or the year after we’ll see the Audi Sport quattro name appear on a production model once again.
