The Audi Concept C Looks Like a Retro-Modern TT With Electric Power

• Audi's Concept C looks to fill the void left by the TT sports car.
• It's inspired by 1930s Auto Union Grand Prix racers.
• Audi says something like the Concept C will go into production.

There's something missing in the Audi lineup, a hole left by the departure of a vehicle that instantly became a design icon. That was the Audi TT, which in 1998 blew just about everyone's minds with its mix of pure style and attainability. Now, Audi is unveiling something that could easily be seen as a successor, even though it's not labeled as such. It's an all-electric, two-seat drop-top preview of a next generation of design for the brand. But, while it may fill that TT-shaped hole in the company's portfolio, the Concept C takes its primary inspiration deeper in the Audi archives, all the way back to the Auto Union days.

I'm talking about the Type C, one of Auto Union's dominant Grand Prix machines of the 1930s. The Type C was built around a 6.0-liter V16 engine and won numerous races between 1936 and 1937. With Audi set to enter Formula 1 next year as it takes over operation of the current Sauber team, it seems the time is ripe to connect the dots between its past Grand Prix dominance and its future F1 aspirations.

But beyond the racing lineage, the Concept C takes more than a few styling cues from that earlier open-cockpit machine, the most notable being the grille. Audi calls it a vertical frame, a subtly striped slab of translucent plastic that's also reminiscent of the goatee-style grilles the company put on many of its cars in the late 2000s, but here done in a much simpler style.

Purity is key to the design, with the Concept C's press releases referencing "radical simplicity" six separate times. It is indeed a simple, pure shape, something that becomes immediately apparent when you see it in the flesh. It's bigger than it looks in photos. Measuring 14.8 feet long, it's actually slightly longer than the R8 supercar. Audi says the Concept C weighs 3,725 pounds and uses rear-wheel drive — an interesting departure for a brand so synonymous with its Quattro all-wheel-drive tech.

The interior of the Concept C is radically different from anything I've ever seen from Audi, paving its own path forward. Again, simplicity is the key here, with straight lines and perfect circles dominating the view.

The cockpit is meant to be exposed to the sun, with the Concept C featuring a power hardtop that retracts beneath that louvered rear decklid. This takes up a huge chunk of space behind the seats but enables a car that looks equally good with the roof up or down.

Roof up, the car shows a clean shape that — in silhouette at least — honors the TT quite nicely. That shape is largely maintained with the top down, as just the immediate portion of the roof over the driver and passenger tucks away, creating a targa-like opening to the sky. And, in case you're wondering, there's no rear glass here. 

You'd be forgiven for thinking there's no touchscreen here either, but it's just shy. Audi's hiding a 10.4-inch display that only appears when needed. When it's not, it swivels out of sight behind the dash. This follows the increasing (and welcomed) trend of rejecting big touchscreens in favor of more pure interior designs, and the chunky, physical, metal controls here are a delight to touch and scroll.

In terms of other aspects of technology, like the powertrain and other practical details, at this point, Audi isn't saying much. Audi confirms this machine is fully electric, and though the Concept C is meant to be a preview of the company's future, that isn't to say that it's all EV from here. There will still be plenty of internal combustion models in Audi's lineup that wear Concept C-inspired styling.

It's also unclear if the production version of the Concept C will share any of its underpinnings with vehicles in the larger Volkswagen Group family. The original TT evolved on the VW Golf platform, giving it a front-drive basis that always seemed a bit at odds with its sports car personality. With Porsche working on an electric 718, and with Audi and Porsche earlier collaborating on shared architecture for the E-tron GT and Taycan, as well as the Q5 and Macan Electric, it's easy to imagine some knowledge-sharing taking place here.

Audi intends to put something like the Concept C into production, and the presence not only of mirrors but windshield wipers definitely hints that the final product shouldn't stray too far from this stunning first step.

Live photos by Tim Stevens