- 11 months ago
This is the most important Audi in two decades—and we drove it. The Audi Concept C is a folding-hardtop electric roadster that marks the beginning of a new era for the brand. Spearheaded by design chief Massimo Frascella and fast-tracked by CEO Gernot Döllner
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00:00Hi there, you're watching Motor Trend. I'm Johnny Lieberman and this is the Audi Concept C and I'm
00:07arguing this is the most important vehicle Audi's done in approximately the last two decades and
00:14we'll get to exactly why that is in a second but a little bit about the car first. We don't know
00:19very much. We do know this thing is electric, it's rear-wheel drive, it's got one motor, it makes over
00:24500 horsepower. We don't know exactly how much. We know it has an 800 volt battery architecture.
00:31We don't know the size of the battery. We don't even know the size of the car. It looks to be a
00:35little bit bigger than the first generation R8, maybe about the same size as the R8 that just went
00:39out of production and that's kind of it. That said, this car has to do two very key things. Number one,
00:48premium brands need a halo car. You just, you have to do it. If somebody buys an A3,
00:53you want them to aspire to something. Why are they buying the A3 over the competition? Because
00:58one day when they make it, they can get into this or get into, used to be the R8, now there's a void.
01:04Also, Audi has this incredible sporting heritage. I mean, going back to the 30s, the silver era right
01:10here, they were dominant at Le Mans for more than a decade. Next year, they're going into F1s. They need
01:17to have those, you know, sporty credentials for real. But, number two, and much more importantly,
01:22this car, this design language, it has to re-establish Audi as a global design leader,
01:29both inside the car and out. So, can the Type-C accomplish either of those two things?
01:38That's what we're going to find out.
01:39All right. So, a bit about the Concept-C's design. You know, it's a brand new design language
01:51philosophy. It's a rebirth of the brand for Audi. And, you know, there's some pretty obvious things.
01:57Like, it's called the Concept-C. Hey, look at this. Here's a 1936 Type-C, or, you know, a recreation
02:02they built in 1998, but close enough. And, you know, if you look at the front of the car, you can
02:07definitely see where that size and shape of the grille comes from. If you look at, I think, if you
02:12look at right here, these kind of intake slats, well, boy, they kind of are about the same size as
02:17the tires here. There's a similarity. There's a resemblance. And if you think about Audi from,
02:23like, you know, 1936 to about 1999, they were known for many things. Quattro, Pikes Peak,
02:29Rallying. They weren't really known for making beautiful cars. It wasn't until this thing, the
02:35Audi TT, designed by Freeman Thomas, sketched on a little thing sitting on his desk. It was so good
02:41looking. That image was taken to, you know, Chairman Piach, who said, green light it. Let's do it. But
02:46this really established Audi is, like, leading in design. This was just, you know, small cars never
02:52looked that good. This looked that good. Plus, the interior, baseball stitching on the seats,
02:58real aluminum switchgear. It just, it was incredible for what anything that was based on a,
03:04you know, Volkswagen Golf architecture. And then came the R8. And this really kind of just shoved
03:12Audi to the front of the pack. This big grille was so influential that eventually, you know,
03:18every car wound up looking like this that had a gasoline engine. Even Toyota's had massive grilles
03:23that were this wide. And it all came out of here. The LED headlights were here. And this car just really
03:29put Audi on the map as something like, hey, you know what, instead of that Ferrari, I'm going to look
03:34at an R8. And it has really been a long time since Audi was kind of just considered a global design
03:41leader. That car is looking to change all that. And once again, I mean, this is a rebirth of what,
03:47you know, Audi was always known for. And that is just like, you know, breathtaking design,
03:52which is both simple, but also very technical. So you have these, you know, simple, beautiful shapes.
03:58But then you look at like this corner here, like very few companies could actually put that into
04:04production. Audi is one of a handful. It's smooth. It's sexy. It's voluptuous. It's awesome. And then
04:10you get to the rear. And I'm just gaga for the rear end of this car because it's both classic,
04:17modern. You see the heritage back to the Type-C race car from the 30s. You see the TT. You see the
04:24R8. It's all there. And what I'm hearing is that starting in 2027, every Audi is going to have this
04:31design language, not only on the exterior, but also inside the car. Let's go take a look at that.
04:37What Audi has done with this interior is really cool. They came to the conclusion that yes,
04:42touchscreens are inevitable. You got to have them. The amount of stuff cars can do, the amount of
04:46capability that can be added via software update. You got to have a configurable touchscreen for that.
04:52It's a very functional touchscreen, but you don't have to look at it all the time. You simply hit a
04:56switch. Boom. Goes away. Also, remember I said click of a control. All the switch gear here,
05:02first of all, it's all aluminum. There's no plastic here, but it all makes the same clicking
05:06noise, which is really cool. We saw aluminum switchgear for the first time on the Audi TT
05:11Concept. They put into production cars where every piece of thing you touched or pulled or clicked
05:17made the same noise. That's great. It's nice to see them getting back to that instead of having
05:21like the clicky touchscreens, which no one really wanted that. The other thing they've done,
05:26which I think is great, is they've banished plastic from inside the cabin. They're using
05:31fabrics here on the doors. Anything that looks like aluminum is aluminum, like the handle to
05:35open the door here. The carpets are actually real shag carpets. I don't know if that'll make
05:40production, but it's very cool. The dash here, it's forged or chopped carbon fiber, similar to what
05:46Lamborghini uses. The top of the dash, it's this kind of like cool rubber neoprene elephant skin,
05:52dolphin skin kind of thing, but it's not like a plastic. It's not a greasy, hard plastic. Now,
05:58are they going to do this for every car in the range? No, there's a certain price point,
06:02which when you fall below that, there will be some plastic instead of carbon fiber. But for the
06:06premium stuff, the interiors are going to be like this, which I think is fantastic. I really feel,
06:13especially when we see the production version of this, that if they can maintain what they're doing
06:17here in the Concept C, this sort of interior spread out across the range is really going to put Audi
06:24back in front when it comes to car interiors. And now we drive.
06:30Okay. Well, first thing I'm noticing is that there is a sound. It's not like, you know,
06:36the rumble of an engine, but it does make some noise. I don't know if that's actually,
06:41there's no speaker. So it's coming from the motor. Second thing I'm noticing is this feels finished.
06:46This doesn't feel like a prototype. Steering is really good. And look, I mean, except for with
06:52the exception of that one R8, like we've wanted a rear wheel drive two door Audi forever. And
07:00this is it. This is, this is great. More than 500 horsepower on just the rear axle. They're not
07:08working. Well, they're saying they're not working on an all wheel drive version yet. Of course they
07:12will. Quattro is a Audi brand value, but for now the, the, the priority is this rear drive one
07:18and the steering is incredibly direct. The Audi PR guy was actually yelling at me earlier saying
07:24like, Oh, you know, you always, you always, uh, bash Audis because they're always like front heavy.
07:29Well, this is not front heavy. This is a very, very linear steering, really smooth feeling car.
07:37Actually. I was very quick. It's a very quick car. They said, don't push it. And I was at about,
07:43I don't know, about like a third, uh, of the way through the throttle pedal there. And I was not even
07:49close to wide open throttle and not even close to full acceleration. This thing's scoot. So can't wait to
07:54actually, you know, get on a larger road with, uh, you know, less, uh, tractors, um, on it and really
08:02open this thing up because it did, I, this is going to be a great driving car. I can, I can tell it's
08:07not the first generation TT, which was like a very sporty looking car that wasn't that sporty. It's not
08:14that it's not a, it's not a Volkswagen golf with a cool body on it. This is a sports car that is
08:20previewing kind of the rebirth of the Audi brand. Everything we're seeing here, the shape, the, the
08:27form factor, this sort of interior, this is going to be on all future Audis starting around 2027. And
08:35like, what a great jumping off point. So does it, you know, a hundred percent plug the hole left by
08:42the R8? No, but at 500 horsepower or more, it's already, you know, probably there in terms of
08:50performance. And again, this is just the rear driver. This isn't the all the inevitable all
08:56wheel drive one that will happen. That'll, you know, you know, well, who knows how much power,
09:00who knows how quick it'll go. So Audi is, uh, they've got something very cool here with the
09:05Concept C. So yeah, you know, wrapping this up, I'm going to say that this car really has surprised
09:11me. And I think the biggest surprise is I just, I don't know why based on nothing. I really made
09:18the assumption that this was like the rebirth of the TT because it's such like just, it has again,
09:24not the form factor that the original, uh, Freeman Thomas design TT had, but I don't know,
09:29just kind of looked closer to that than the R8, but I'm telling you the performance of this thing.
09:36And I say this, I drove an R8 about three hours ago, first gen R8. This blows it out of the water
09:43in, in terms of acceleration, but also honestly, the steering's better. This is, this is really good.
09:49I just wasn't expecting this at all. I'm, I'm, I'm, uh, thoroughly impressed. What do I think? I think
09:56the future of Audi is pretty bright. I mean, this interior is magnificent. I love the way this
10:04thing looked, uh, in photos, it's actually much better in sunlight. You really just see like,
10:09it's quite dimensional, which is a bizarre thing to say, but in photos, everything is flattened out
10:14in two dimensional. This, there's more curves than in reality than you see on your phone screen.
10:20It really does pop. And yeah, I'm excited to see where this brand is headed because, you know,
10:2620 years ago, Audi kind of revolutionized car design, right? They put in all these cool,
10:33like haptic switches and all the buttons made the same noise. First time anyone had ever done that.
10:38And then, you know, the, the big grill design language, you know, uh, Toyota is still using
10:44it. Like they did, they changed the shape of the automotive industry. And I think the concept C
10:50of any previews, well, the rebirth of that. Anyways, thank you very much for watching.
10:55Uh, Johnny Lieberman, uh, signing off from Motor Trend and we'll catch you on the next one.
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