As this quattro Redux series has traced—from the featherweight A5 prototype in Part 1, to the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing 2.5 TFSI mule in Part 2 and Part 3, to the origin tale and Malibu drive of the 2010 quattro concept in Part 4 and Part 5—it becomes clear just how deeply Audi experimented with lightweight design in the late 2000s. Yet one of the most intriguing objects from that era never reached a start platform, a dyno pull, or even daylight outside a studio or event hall. So far as we know, it lived only as a scale design model: a rally-spec vision of the 2010 quattro concept.
Audi briefly displayed the model during one of its lightweight technology day events, a moment when the brand was openly exploring the limits of its efficiency-through-lightness philosophy. Tucked among carbon components and aluminum spaceframe demonstrations sat this unexpected what-if—the quattro reimagined not as a road car, but as a modern rally weapon.
It was fantastical, and that was the point. The form leaned heavily toward the dramatic wedge-wing silhouette of the Audi Sport quattro S1 E2, the legendary Group B and Pikes Peak icon that capped quattro’s original motorsport era. Deep vents, exaggerated aero elements, and the stance of something built to pummel gravel suggested an alternate reality in which Audi doubled back into rallying with a couture-grade coupe.
Would this quattro have actually raced? Realistically, no. By the 2010s the World Rally Championship was tailored almost exclusively around small, inexpensive economy-car platforms. Volkswagen’s own program from 2013–2016 centered on the Polo—precisely the sort of compact, accessible shape that defines the modern WRC marketing brief. A premium, limited-production sports coupe like the quattro concept was simply too exotic, too costly, and too large to function in that arena. This was, after all, the same mismatch of scale and target audience that pressured Audi to depart the WRC in the late 1980s as Group B drew to a close.
Even so, the rally model captured the imaginations of those deciding whether the quattro should have a production future, asking “what if?” at a moment when those same executives were reconsidering everything from materials to brand identity. It channeled a lineage that stretched from the early quattro’s radical origins to the outrageous S1 E2. And in that spirit, it remains an intriguing and largely unknown piece of the quattro redux story.
I encountered the model firsthand at that lightweight tech day, photographing it from every angle. Today, with AI tools in the arsenal, those archival images can be lifted from their glass case and placed—finally—into settings they were built to inhabit: a studio or rally stage. It’s a fitting coda for an idea that existed in sketch or scale model form.
With this rally ghost of a quattro, we close this six-part quattro Redux journey. From prototype mules to driving in the concept itself on canyon roads around Malibu, this series has traced a path through one of Audi’s most fascinating what-might-have-been chapters.
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