Car channel

PARIS PREVIEW: Following on from last year's A1 project quattro concept, Audi will display a five door version in Paris The world’s fashion capital turns its attention to models of a different kind this week, with the opening of the Paris Salon de l’Auto. Forget the empire line, the bubble skirt and the Mandarin collar, all the talk in France at the moment revolves around hybrid-drive systems, small-displacement force-fed engines and twin-plate clutches. Audi will be there, presenting for the first time a five-door ‘Sportback’ version of its A1 concept. Developed on the back of the three-door concept revealed last year at the Tokyo Motor Show, the A1 Sportback concept employs the same 1.4-litre TFSI engine in a hybrid-drive configuration. The turbocharged petrol engine, which produces 110kW of power, is aided by a 20kW electric motor when additional performance is required. According to Audi, the electric motor can supply an extra 150Nm of torque, when needed. That’s i...