Audi will make the massive jump from premium sedans, wagons and coupes up into a genuine supercar maker within the next three years, if the Bavarian carmaker’s newest board member gets his way.
Audi’s Wolfgang Durheimer is deep into an optimistic program to take the hugely successful R18 e-tron Quattro Le Mans champion and turn it into a very exclusive road car along with a hard-core sports car to fight against Porsche’s Cayman.
Planned to sit well above Audi’s existing sports car flagship, the R8 V10 Plus, the R18-based hypercar would use a slightly modified version of the Le Mans winner’s diesel-electric hybrid powertrain.
“We don’t take as much benefit from the Le Mans Program as we probably could,” Mr Durheimer told Motoring.com.au during the Detroit Motor Show.
“We are looking at a product that is directly received from the racing car and adapted for street use.
“We are pushing for diesel-hybrid high performance as we have in the Le Mans car. “
Audi has dominated recent Le Mans 24 Hour history, winning 11 times from its 13 starts (or 12 times, if you count the Bentley win in a rebodied Audi), including sweeping all three podium places in the 2012 edition. It has now won with petrol V8, diesel V10, diesel V8 and a combination of a diesel V6/electric hybrid technology. It was the first to win Le Mans with a diesel car and the first to win with a hybrid, too.
“The technology is sophisticated but Le Mans technology that’s possible to use on the road. This has been determined by the Carrera GT from Porsche,” Mr Durheimer insisted.
And he should know, having served a stint as Porsche’s head of research and development before becoming the boss of Bentley and Bugatti before being appointed to the Audi board in the second half of last year.
His plan for a road-going R18 e-tron includes transferring its full carbon-fibre tub, sophisticated aerodynamics, race-bred suspension and incredible fuel economy, plus stunning speed, directly onto a slightly softer version.
“It’s in discussion,” Mr Durheimer admitted. “We are studying it and there are some nice design sketches that we like.
“We don’t replace the R8. It would be a halo car for above the R8. There is no reason we can’t do something above the R8. The R8 would remain in its positioning.
“If there are enough buyers for this it will be a production project and I think our colleagues at Porsche would be happy with that (with the 918) because competition grows the market.”
While Mr Durheimer refused to go into more detail, other Audi sources insist the car would be a very low volume offering, with perhaps as few as 25 machines in the plan at prices above not only every Audi offering but every Lamborghini currently on sale as well.
Audi would need to detune the 3.7-litre V6 TDI from its 400kW Le Mans tune to something more in keeping with road-going reliability, though there is every reason to suspect a road-going version might be even faster in a straight line than the Le Mans racer.
It would not need to adhere to the Le Mans governing body’s air inlet restrictors that limit the revs and power output from the single-turbo V6. The R18 e-tron’s hybrid system (which comes from F1 mainstay Williams) is based around a spinning flywheel that can send 500 kilojoules of energy to the front wheels.
Again, this is technology Mr Durheimer is familiar with, having driven the development of the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid racer that used the same system and came within a broken valve spring of winning the Nurburgring 24 Hour race at its first attempt.
Any road-going R18 e-tron would be able to employ the electrical energy for security and grip as well as straight-line speed because the hybrid system effectively turns the rear-drive diesel racer into an all-wheel drive Quattro whenever its driver asked for it, rather than the hybrid system being limited to above 120km/h, as demanded by the Le Mans organisers.
The smaller sports car to sit beneath the R8 presents a bigger challenge, though. With the next TT planned to come off the A3’s MQB architecture, it will be a front-driver with part time all-wheel drive. While competent, it’s not the sort of thing to set purist pulses racing.
Instead, rumours persist that a car along the lines of the Quattro Concept could still emerge at Audi and basing it off the Cayman’s mid-engined architecture with a choice of four- and five-cylinder turbo motors is the idea most mooted by insiders. Mr Durheimer, who developed that Cayman architecture, refuses to rule out its use beneath an Audi body.
“I believe there is room for a sporty car below the R8. There is no reason to say there is no room below the R8,” he said. “It is not priority number one right now, but there is definitely room.”
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