Audi TT Sportback concept.Jeremy Cato/The Globe and Mail
And so it seems the Audi TT isn't a sports car after all, at least not in the traditional sense.
The five-door Audi TT Sportback concept throws the idea of the TT as pure sports car and roadster into the blender of corporate creativity and the never-ending search for profits. It is a mix of the TT, the Audi A5 Sporback and the A7 Sportback all fused into one "to form a new member of a potential TT family," said development boss Ulrich Hackenberg,
Confused? We shouldn't be. Buyers the world over are stampeding into crossover-type vehicles. And so Audi and others are moving to meet demand. Mini, for instance, showed a five-door version of its basic car here in Paris. Why not a five-door TT?
This one from Audi was painted in what the company called "Mars" red and "the body is a statement of powerful elegance" with its highly precise lines that "border athletically domed surfaces, and a flat greenhouse" that is "positioned on a powerful body. The design makes use of the Audi TT's formal idiom to develop a new sporty and elongated sculpture that is highly taut."
If built, it will be fast, too. The engine is a four-cylinder rated at 400 horsepower. Audi calls it a "speedy sports car with four seats and five doors" which using quattro four-wheel drive and a seven-speed S tronic gearbox to do 0-100 km/h in 3.9 seconds.
It is the future, apparently.