Ross Finlay applauds the German engineering with flair.
In September 1995 Audi stunned observers at the Frankfurt Show with a weirdly styled, partly retro-look TT Coupe. One month later at Tokyo its display included an open two-seater TTS version of the same car.
The story at the time was that these were design studies. However, early in December of the same year the company announced that they would be going into production, and this week Audi has confirmed that the Coupe will be on sale here in the spring of 1999. Its exterior lines now seem less
wildly eccentric, because we have seen what the new Beetle will be like, and the Audi-VW ''family'' resemblance is quite clear.
The UK market will take two versions, both in four-wheel drive quattro specification. One will have a twin-intercooled 1.8-litre turbo engine peaking at 225bhp, and a sophisticated six-speed transmission. The other will make do with a similarly sized engine in 180bhp tune.
The style may be retro, but
the mechanical elements are certainly not. Both models feature advanced suspension design and formidable braking power.
Well before the TT Coupe goes on sale, Audi is likely to make the headlines at next month's Festival of Speed at Goodwood. It has entered several historic cars from its own collection, including two of the pre-war Auto Union Grand Prix cars - a 1936 V16 C-type and a 1938 V12 D-type - as well as one of the rampaging Audi quattro S1 Evolution rally cars of the eighties, whose 520bhp power output obliterates the modest 60bhp of the 1926 NSU Grand Prix car.
Why should Audi bother with these cars, some of which do not even carry its own name? The original Audi company dates back to 1909. In 1932 it was absorbed, like NSU, into the Auto Union combine, and was represented by one of the four linked rings in the Auto Union badge, which is still in use today as Audi's own.
Nowadays, though, Auto Union is a non-car making subsidiary of Audi, and Audi itself, of course, is part of the Volkswagen group.
The present head of the group is Ferdinand Piech, who was the engineering brain behind the concept of the Audi quattro. Before joining Audi he was with Porsche, where he was responsible for
the phenomenal 1100bhp 917 sports-racer.
He is a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who happened to have a Grand Prix car layout in his design office when Auto Union came along in 1934 asking if he had any ideas on the subject. So Audi's interest in these historic competition cars is encouraged right at top management level.
The company has also financed some meticulous restoration work, carried out by the British firm of Crosthwaite and Gardiner. They rebuilt the two Auto Union Grand Prix cars being brought over for Goodwood. The supercharged triple-cam V12 D-type was demonstrated there recently by Audi Collection curator Franz Peter, and this is a significant year for it to be back on British soil.
Exactly 60 years ago a similar car, in the hands of the inimitable Tazio Nuvolari, won the Donington Grand Prix. While present-day Grand Prix drivers reckon their job is pretty demanding, how about taming a 420bhp power output in a decidedly tail-heavy chassis, on the skinny racing tyres and rudimentary compounds of the late thirties?
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