The Audi Quattro is a car that needs no introduction. By convincing the world of rallying that four-wheel drive was the way to go just as the sport entered its maddest, baddest and raddest era in the mid-’80s, it instantly cemented itself as a bona fide legend.
Its impact on Audi as a manufacturer is just as significant. It kicked off the brand’s association with four-wheel drive that’s been core to its image ever since, and its pairing of four driven wheels and a turbocharged five-pot has been revisited a few times over the years too.
It’s remarkable, then, given the sheer marketing power of nostalgia and heritage, that Audi has never brought back the Quattro model name. But it’s certainly thought about it.
Audi Quattro concept – side
2010 marked 30 years since the Quattro first arrived on the scene, and to celebrate, Audi rolled out a rather special concept car at that year’s Paris Motor Show. To create the Quattro concept, Audi had a good rummage around in its parts bin, marrying various bits of its contemporary performance cars for something with a distinctly retro flavour.
Its chassis was borrowed from the RS5 coupe, chopped down by 150mm to give it that squat, boxy stance of the original car – something that shaving 200mm from the rear overhang and 40mm off the roofline also helped achieve.
Much like the original, power was provided by a turbocharged five-cylinder, this time the 2.5-litre TFSI unit that had debuted the year before in the original TT RS. In that car, it made 335bhp, but for the Quattro concept, Audi turned that up to 402bhp. Torque, meanwhile, was 354lb ft.
Audi Quattro concept – front
Better yet, all that was sent to all four wheels – obviously – via a six-speed manual transmission, while a sport differential vectored torque across the rear axle to make everything a little more playful.
Thanks to a largely aluminium body and plenty more of the stuff underneath, weight was kept down to 1300kg, which gave the Quattro concept a power-to-weight ratio on a par with that of the then-current R8 V10, which had over 100 more horsepower. It was said to be capable of hitting 62mph in just 3.9 seconds.
Audi Quattro concept – interior
Inside, it was a strict two-seater, the RS5’s rear bench sacrificed during the shortening process. The front seats were ultra-lightweight buckets, weighing just 18kg a piece. In something of a novelty for a car from 2010, the instrument cluster was fully digital, switchable between a normal mode and a retro-inspired ‘race mode’ with a seven-segment speed display. A neat if admittedly gimmicky inclusion was the cluster’s ability to display rally pace note-style directional arrows to warn of upcoming bends.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about the Quattro concept was that it all seemed entirely feasible for production. Indeed, Audi confirmed to Autocar in 2010 that plans for a limited production run – somewhere between 200 and 500 units – were underway, and later that year, some journalists were even given the chance to drive the prototype (albeit without its trick rear diff).
Audi Quattro concept – rear
Come 2012, though, the project was dead in the water. Why? The answer will disappoint you, but not surprise you: crossovers. Audi had recognised that performance versions of jacked-up faux-off-roaders were going to rake in more cash than a niche, limited-run retro-styled coupe. Sigh.
It wasn’t quite the end of Audi’s flirtation with a reimagined Quattro, though. At Frankfurt in 2013, it showed off the Sport Quattro concept, which carried over some of the design cues of the 2010 car. This time, though, it sat on a shortened RS7 platform and utilised a twin-turbo V8 plug-in hybrid powertrain pushing 690bhp.
Audi Sport Quattro concept (2013)
Once again, a small production run was mooted, and once again, it was canned a few years later so Audi could focus on crossovers. Sigh, again. Frankly, though, with its more tech-forward focus and engine that was essentially an off-the-shelf item shared with plenty of other VW Group cars, the 2013 car was nowhere near as cool as the raw, analogue 2010 version, which also had much closer ties to the car that inspired them both.
That white car is one of the great automotive might-have-been of recent years, and every time we remember it exists, we get a little bit sadder that it never saw the light of day.
