With this week’s AI Imagined feature, I’m going back in time in more ways than one. I’m revisiting one of the earliest AI creations published on my @4Rings.AI Instagram account. In doing so, I’m shining the spotlight on an imagined rally evolution car from the early 1990s that never existed.
What’s an RS 003? To tell that story properly, you have to dig into real history. I began that exploration with the Mittelmotor Saga series, which examined the mysterious history of Audi’s first postwar experiments with mid-engine configurations. Auto Union had once dominated pre-war Grand Prix racing—the era’s equivalent of Formula 1—with mid-engined cars designed by Ferdinand Porsche. Yet, the four rings didn’t return to the mid-engine layout until the mid-1980s, when rivals in Group B rallying began pushing back against the Sport quattro’s dominance with their own mid-engined machines.
In a top-secret move, Ferdinand Piëch tasked a select group of Audi engineers with creating a mid-engine quattro to restore Audi’s rally supremacy. The RS 001 test mule and RS 002 Group S prototype were born, but both were ultimately ordered destroyed by the Volkswagen Group board, which wanted to end the rally program. As if corporate restraint weren’t enough, Group B rallying soon ended after a series of fatal crashes, and its planned successor—Group S—was scrapped as the FIA sought to rein in costs and improve safety.
We know how history unfolded. Audi left rallying to pursue success in circuit racing—Trans-Am, IMSA GTO, DTM, Le Mans, and later GT3, GT4, GT2, and TCR. But what if things had gone differently? What if rallying had continued as an arms race among manufacturers building the most exotic rally machines imaginable? What would Group S have evolved into? What would have come after the RS 002?
This early rendering, created back in 2023 and featured in original form earlier in this series, imagined that next step. I blended the RS 002’s Group S design language with the later evolution of Audi’s R18 LMP1 racer. While the image was somewhat rudimentary at the time, with clear limitations in realistic detailing, I was curious how the design might look when re-interpreted using today’s AI tools—such as Google’s Nano Banana.
These newer tools fill in the gaps left by earlier generations, adding lifelike textures and greater consistency in realism. I’ve also refined my prompts and processes to generate alternate angles of the same concept. The results are fascinating.
The original design feels very much of the early 1990s, evoking concepts like the Audi Avus and quattro Spyder—both pioneers of aluminum space frame (ASF) construction. Could this imagined RS 003 have featured ASF technology? What engine might it have used? The timing predates the B5-era 2.7T, but the early 1990s still offered potent evolutions of Audi’s iconic five-cylinder.
Ultimately, it’s just fun to imagine. This car never existed—not even as a secret prototype like the RS 001 or RS 002—but I still find myself drawn to it, much like anyone who’s ever wondered what might have been if Audi had stayed in rallying.
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