I mean, there are so many amazing cars to choose from. I have to say, looking back, the original TT was the car that actually made me come to Audi in the first place.
I was a student at the time and I remember thinking ‘Wow, how can you design a car like this?’. But it was more than just a car. The reduction. The cleanness. The coolness. The Bauhaus inspiration. To me it was halfway between car design and product design, and this is what really amazed me. It was totally my style and to this day I love it.
But thinking about Vorsprung durch Technik specifically, there have been many milestone cars that have championed innovation. The Audi A2, for example. This car was really, really clever in its design. It had a fantastic footprint: really small on the outside, really big on the inside. It was also incredibly aerodynamic and very lightweight – something we’ve come to appreciate more and more in the electric era.
And then there was the A6 Allroad, a personal favourite of mine. This was in response to the growing demand for SUVs in the premium market, and at the time Audi didn’t have an SUV. So, Audi decided to take its best, most versatile car and combine it with the features that buyers were looking for in SUVs: off-road capability, chunky design and a higher driving position. For me, it’s still one of the greatest cars Audi has ever made and a clear example of Vorsprung durch Technik thinking.
Electric mobility has changed the game for car design. What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages? How is Audi overcoming these?
This is a question we’ve been trying to answer for 15 years, ever since car design began to split between regular combustion cars and electric cars.
At first, we all said ‘Horray!’. The big, lumpy engine was gone and so we thought it would give us more freedom to design exactly how we wanted. But it didn’t turn out quite that way.
But, let’s start with the advantages. First, the added weight of electric cars means big, wide wheels are needed to carry everything, and designers love big wheels. Second, because the batteries are in the middle of the car, it means the wheels can be pushed out to each corner, which means shorter overhangs. Now Audi design has typically been about having long overhangs, but this shift in technical layout has given us some exciting opportunities in the design department, especially when it comes to finding the perfect proportions of a car.