With this design, I’m going back in more ways than one – back to the TT Cup, to Audi Sport performance parts and to my own rendering work with Photoshop before A.I. tools ever came online.
That’sa not-so distant past mind you, but at this point it’s far enough back that people seeking to render something from their imagination did so without the easy of querying a digital tool to simply remove the race liveries or add different wheels as have been done here.
I work a lot with A.I. tools and I continue to maintain that they are very useful and at their best when they’re used simply as a tool. I can see it in my own work. I can create a lot of interesting things just by asking, but it’s when I use them with a foundation of my own work that they take on a whole other level of depth.
TT CUP SERIES
In this case, the project comes from a time when I was covering the TT Cup – a one-make / one-model series that the Volkswagen Group launched to follow-up multiple series built around VW models. There was the New Beetle Cup, the Lupo Cup and the Scirocco Cup – series used to give platforms to up-and-coming drivers and occasional celebrity influencers at the wheel on German DTM race weekends. With the launch of the Mk3 TT, Audi built a fleet of TT Cup cars with body basis on the TT S line / TTS long before the TT RS had been revealed.
As a design, the cars were purposeful. They featured subtle augmented fender flares and slight changes to the original bodywork plus a massive rear spoiler. And, because these were race cars, wheels and tires were optimized for lightness and contact patch rather than large diameter.
TT CUP CLUBSPORT
Back then, I’d attended the initial European TT Mk3 press launch and had driven the TTS Mk3 with a manual transmission that was initially offered in Europe. When Audi Sport performance parts arrived complete with Audi Sport design wheels and even more components for the TT RS (Mk3), I was even more inspired. Considering all of this and the great-looking TT Cup racecar, I wanted to blend the two in order to create something like Audi’s equivalent of the 911 GT3.
I don’t build cars. I write about them and render them, so I did what came naturally to me and rendered the car in photoshop, imagining it as an OEM+ tour-de-force, blending parts from the TT Cup and Audi Sport performance parts while imagining other components one wouldn’t need to photoshop – manual transmission, R8 Recaro option seats (also occasionally offered in TT RS) or the torque vectoring rear differential of the modern RS 3.
What could be seen in the renderings were key exterior components. I began with a white TT Cup publicity photograph. The racecar downforce spoiler was replaced with the subtler and smaller Audi Sport performance parts carbon fiber version for the TT RS.
The wheels selected for the image were from the R8 rear. I never did the math, but figured the R8 with its staggered fitment and wider rear would do nicely under the widened arches of the TT Cup body kit. That the R8 rear wheel from the Audi Sport performance parts catalogue had a deeper dished look to its center lug area only augments the look further.
RENDERING NOW WITH AI
What about this image is AI? In truth, it was created with Photoshop before I’d ever used an AI tool. However, today’s tools allow me to place the car in whatever background I wish – here a black photo studio in order to emphasize the car and make its white bodywork pop.
I can also render the car from various angles. While I only had a few angles of Audi TT Cup PR images to work from, I can now take those original angles and ask for more. And while, yes, I could simply submit any TT Cup images and ask for the same, I don’t think they’d be as realistic. You’d never get the nuance of the Audi Sport performance parts TT RS rear spoiler or the correct contours of the R8-specification rear wheels.
AND WHAT OF THE TT CUP?
This last part is worth revisiting. I hear from contacts inside Audi that most of the TT Cup cars were destroyed. I believe Audi Tradition has at least one as I’ve seen it in the background at Audi Tradition’s warehouse holding facility, but most of these cars went to the crusher… at least that’s my understanding. Likely they were reused preproduction chassis that couldn’t be sold off, but as a fan that’s still hard to swallow even though it makes sense.
WOULD PEOPLE HAVE BOUGHT IT?
Would a TT Cup Clubsport for the street meant to harken the Porsche 911 GT3 have been a commercial success?
As much as I personally would have loved to have one, I somehow doubt it. The R8, also in the lineup at the time and also ceasing production in 2023 alongside the TT, likely stole any attention for such a car.
Even still, the idea of such a TT in the lineup remains something that I think could have replaced the R8 4.2 in the range – a seriously capable car just under $100K. Now, add in the rear differential from the RS 3, the manual transmission and the 5-cylinder engine and you would have had something very special.
PHOTO GALLERY
