If you thought we'd had enough of 'malignant rumors' with our last article reporting that Jaguar was seriously considering putting the C-X75 hypercar into limited production, you were wrong.
British magazine Autocar reports that a team of engineers at Audi's Ingolstadt headquarters are advancing plans to put the Quattro Concept from the 2010 Paris Motor Show into limited production. If approved, this would see the nouvea-Quattro being built in limited numbers at ItalDesign's plant near Milan.
Stefan Reil, Head of Development at Audi's Quattro GmbH alludes that the Paris Show car was always intended as more than a one-off, and that limited production plans are already at an advanced stage: "We know how to engineer it already." he said.
Though the newly acquired subsidiary has no facilities for vehicle assembly at present, ItalDesign does have some experience with low volume production, having assembled the BMW M1 supercar in the late 1970s. The Italian design house also has a history of producing one-off concept cars for Audi's parent firm Volkswagen.
The Quattro Concept features an aluminium / carbonfibre body and the four-wheel-drive underpinnings of the RS5 coupe. The powerplant is the same 2.5-liter turbocharged five-pot unit used in the TT RS, though Mr. Reil suggests it could be tuned beyond its existing 340 bhp (254 kw):
"A really good turbocharged petrol engine has around 140bhp [/ 104 kw per litre]. We're a little under that now. But with a larger turbocharger something around 350bhp [261 kw] is possible."
Mr. Reil, however, remains cautious: "We need feedback to see if it is possible. Audi has no heritage in building 200-500 cars that are really exotic. But it won't be over €100,000 [£86,000 / US$139,000]."
Furthering the possibility of a limited production run, Audi's Paris Motor Show booth hosted a scale model of a Quattro Concept dressed in rally livery and featuring an ur-Quattro-emulating front spoiler, flared arches and rear wing hints at a return to Audi's glory days at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
We will have further updates as they come through.
By Tristan Hankins
Source: Autocar
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