Some of the best design is polarizing. That’s especially so when a paradigm change is sought as Audi finds itself doing presently. The brand’s current design language has played itself out, the singleframe “shield grille” copied by many brands and made busy by unnecessary elements like fake vents in order to wow an increasingly bored consumer base. When Concept C was created, Audi designers aimed to shake that all up and try something new.
Truly new is almost always polarizing. Consumers and fans happy with the status quo likely don’t welcome radical changes, while the unfamiliar can be off-putting and require a warm-up period. Such is the case with Concept C.
A friend in Audi design once told me that the real test was seeing the car out on the street and surrounded by a real world environment. That, he argued, is where a real appreciation for the design happens. Seeing the design in other colors more familiar to what you prefer also changes impressions. It was with these pearls of wisdom in mind that I approached creation of this most recent set of images.
Unlike a lot of what makes the cut in this A.I. Imagined series, the car you see here isn’t a new or unseen design. This is Audi’s Concept C, but re-skinned using A.I. rendering tools. All I did was change the color of the car and some other key details. I simulated Audi’s much-loved Nogaro Blue color and added bright silver wheels in order to appear more production-spec. Inside, I also changed the color of the interior to black and added some other surface details such as carbon fiber and TT-familiar baseball glove stitching on the seats.
I also relocated the car, pulling it out of the studio and off the auto show stand placement, which are the only locations we’ve all seen it. Instead, through the power of AI image generation, it’s seen here out and about in New York City – mainly in the meat-packing district.
While I don’t have the power to physically display the car outside Chelsea Market for you to take in on your own, the power of these most current image-generating tools does let us do the next best thing.
So, what do you think?
PHOTO GALLERY
