Inspiring designs

Automotive designers can get a little carried away when they’re given a clean slate and told to let their imaginations run wild. The result is called a concept design study or concept car, and they are the stuff of automotive dreams that capture the imagination at motor shows and send the internet into a frenzy.

Audi has a long history of producing exciting concept cars that not only fire up the imagination and tease the future, but many that make the leap from concept to reality, sometimes with precious little change.

The Audi TT is one of the most famous examples of this happening, when the car presented at the Frankfurt International Motor Show in 1995, became a series production reality just three years later, launching a modern day automotive icon. 

In 2003 Audi again captured world attention with another concept vehicle, this time a futuristic supercar designated the Audi Le Mans quattro concept. The mid-engined coupe aimed squarely at the rarified atmosphere occupied by super cars, with its 5.0-litre twin-turbo V10 engine, petrol direct injection and the then-new Audi magnetic ride suspension concept.

Once again, just three years later, the stunning Le Mans quattro became a reality, its series production name – the Audi R8.

Another very familiar model that went on to launch the Audi Q range began life as a concept design study, this time headlining the 2003 Detroit Motor Show as the Pikes Peak quattro. This large, luxurious vehicle was named after the legendary mountain climb event in Colorado that the brand had dominated in the past with its quattro rally cars. 

It was a radical departure for the brand, an SUV before the term SUV was even in common usage, it promised to take Audi customers to new places if only it were to become a reality. And become reality it is did just two years later when Audi presented the Q7 to world – introducing not just a new model but starting what would become a completely new and highly successful model family of Audi vehicles. 

The Audi e-tron quattro concept of 2015 pointed to the brand’s new electric direction, a large, luxury SUV using an electric drivetrain and featured a raft of new technology seemingly lifted straight from science fiction. But in just two years, Audi presented its first all-electric model, the Audi e-tron and started a completely new chapter in the history of the Audi brand. Then of course there was the Audi e-tron GT concept which even graced the screen in the blockbuster  Avengers: End Game before going on to become the Audi e-tron GT practically without change – the very pinnacle of the brand’s all-electric offering.

The striking Q6 e-tron concept unveiled at the start of this year is based on another e-tron model – the all-electric Q6 e-tron. It takes the first Audi to use the Premium Platform Electric to extremes, with its 380kW of power and its ability to climb gradients of up to 45 degrees. Whether this rugged interpretation of the Q6 e-tron will follow in the tyre tracks of other Audi concept vehicles remains to be seen, but it certainly serves to fire up the imagination and show what could be possible down the track a little.

Other exciting models like the inspired Audi ‘sphere’ models have yet to materialise in series production form after showing their very different interpretations of future mobility. From the sweeping design of the Audi skysphere with its ‘expanding technology, to the elegance of the grandsphere, practicality of the urbansphere or off-road abilities of the activesphere, each model is a tantalising glimpse at a possible future.

Just how close the ‘sphere’ concepts or the Q6 e-tron concept will prove to be to a series production model in the future remains to be seen, but the possibilities they presents are exciting to anyone with an interest in cars and future mobility. And given the brand’s reputation for producing concept vehicles that become reality, many hope that these concept creations are a close representation of what is to come.