Gallery: Audi shows 2 ‘Raritäten ” at Techno-Classica

Posted on 07-04-2016 to 17:00 by autoblogger – 27 Comments”

Do not be mistaken. It is certainly not a cabinet of curiosities was that Audi under the title “Raritäten” at the Techno-Classica show.

But it are two extremely rare concept cars: the Audi quattro Spyder and Audi Avus quattro. They have the production stage is never reached, and there is but one copy was built. Both cars contain design elements and technologies that are found in later Audi models.

The Audi quattro Spyder, which debuted in 1991 at the Frankfurt motor Show. There was a thick 2.8 V6 mid-engine. In the quattro Spyder are lines of the later Audi R8. Soon came rumors that Audi are a small number of copies would produce. That, on the basis of the prototype, much interest was shown by the fact that certain customers with cash, a deposit wanted to do. But the car is not gone beyond the concept stage, because the production costs were too high. Audi wanted a price tag of less than 100 thousand German mark to hang out and that did not work.

12 cylinders and aluminum
Audi kept the car industry by surprise in 1991. A month after the introduction of the quattro Spyder was given to the public at the Tokyo Motor Show, the Audi Avus quattro. The profile of the Avus quattro with its elongated back evokes associations with the first-generation Audi TT and even the Bugatti Veyron. Replace in your head, but once the horizontal Audi grille with the four rings by the vertical Bugatti-grid and pay particular attention to the headlights and the curvature of the fender above the wheels.

With the Avus quattro wanted the engineers of Audi to show off that they weight could save through the use of aluminum. Hence, the car unlacquered meet shiny.
The engineers from Audi have worked on that moment a new type of engine with three banks of 4 cylinders that the name is W12, and that was good for 509 hp. It was said that the block in the Avus quattro is still a dummie. The long backside of the Avus quattro is because the W12 engine in its entirety for the rear axle.

The concept of a full aluminium bodywork fitted to Audi in 1994 for the first time in mass production on the A8. The W12 later found its way into the Volkswagen Nardò, Volkswagen Phaeton, Audi A8 and Bentley Continental.

Fun factoid: the Avus quattro is named after the now largely vanished race track Avus in Berlin. Characteristic for the circuit were the curves. Nice detail: on the background of the photos of the Avus are images of races at the circuit of Avus.

Gallery: Techno Classica-2016 Audi Concepts

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With thanks to Robert van den Oever and Maarten van der Pas for this contribution!