Audi Concept C previews flagship sports car that won't fill the R8’s shoes
Audi Concept C is a bold preview of a future sports car as well as a sharp distinctive forthcoming change in design language
Define yourself or die. That’s the kind of era it feels like the motoring world is enduring at the moment. Myriad market headwinds are conspiring to flay the thick skin of profitability from once rocksteady industry titans. Audi is a prime example and is in distinct need of a line in the sand – a new North Star toward which it can walk with confidence. Placed in the sky by new Audi chief design officer Massimo Frascella, this is it, the Audi Concept C.
This is our first taste of the sort of car Audi one day hopes to replace its R8 and TT supercar and sports coupe duo with. For the moment it’s the poster child for a refreshed design direction that will define Audi’s make-or-break next-generation product. This is a pivotal moment in Audi’s history and as such, Concept C is as important in Ingolstadt as Type 00 is in Coventry.
It comes off the back of a haphazard few years for Audi, that followed two decades of unprecedented brand building, textbook market maneuvers and the monstrous profitability that resulted. In recent times it's been all strategic indecision, indistinct product and apparently ill-informed bets that just didn’t pay off.
In 2025 an Audi that doesn’t know exactly what should power its cars, at times what its cars should even be called and what its customers actually want, needs course correction. Maybe that’s what Concept C stands for?
Audi Concept C – design
It’s definitely a statement – one as impactful, if not immediately in a positive sense, as the original TT. But even over the course of writing this, the more I go through the images, the more I like it.
There’s definitely a bit of R8 in the silhouette of the Audi Concept C, even if the rest of its design philosophy calls upon other moments in Audi’s storied history, with ‘radical simplicity’ the mantra that underscores it – Frascella comes from JLR where he was responsible for the monolithic current Range Rover, and it shows. Simplicity is a bold thing to go for when the job is to stand out in an enormous car market that’s exploding with new players. That’s where influences from Audi’s history, something no new name can manufacture, come in.
No doubt the most distinctive and what will be the most controversial piece of its design, is that grille. The vertical frame as Audi calls it, is a nod to everything from a late-1930s grand prix racer the Auto Union Type C (the real source of the Concept C name), to the 2004 Audi A6, the first in Audi’s range to introduce its last vertical grille before it proliferated across the A4, A5, R8 and Q7.
The Concept C is electric (shocker) and thus, this is a styling element and an area to house ADAS tech rather than an air intake. Flanking intakes below the minimalistic rectangular lighting units look more like traditional cooling channels.
The sharp-edged minimalism of the Concept C will no doubt draw comparisons with the Jaguar Type 00 but the Audi is definitely more sculpted, with more curves in its surfacing and more detail. It’s closer to how you’d imagine a production version would be than Coventry’s own FAB1. There’s more precedent in Audi’s history for this kind of design, too. From the Avus and Rosemeyer concepts, to the wild RSQ of 2004, to the V16-powered Type 52 recreation of last year.
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There’s a monolithic modern art deco feel, for better or worse. That continues from all angles, the Concept C’s minimalistic yet sculptural surfacing resting over a familiar silhouette, albeit one that can be broken up significantly with the retraction of the roof panels. The rear is a highlight – simplistic still but with a purposeful diffuser element, prominent and confident haunches and a nicely defined teardrop taper. The solid rear screen where on the R8, you could look through to the V10 nestled within, is an acquired taste.
Audi Concept C – interior
Inside as out there’s a minimalistic approach to the Concept C’s cabin. The cockpit-like vibe of both R8 generations is nowhere to be found. This is an open and airy environment, albeit one oozing with high quality and tactility.
The steering wheel is strangely retro in parts with the four rings ensconced in an old-school circular airbag, within a fully circular wheel. The rotary controls look tactile in an LFA-esque sort of way, though there are haptic elements.
There’s a fold-away 10.4-inch central screen that leaves a clean unfussy dash, into which the driver’s display is embedded. Where there isn’t futuristic hatched fabric there are flowing metal elements – the door handles look like some sort of incredibly expensive, elaborate art deco kitchen tap. In all, it’s a clinical but stylish and quality-looking cabin – what else from Audi?
Audi Concept C – powertrain
That R8-ish silhouette is informed by the layout of the Concept C’s mechanicals, that are very much in the realms of production feasibility. Set behind the cabin is a stack of batteries, more or less where you’d ordinarily find an engine in a combustion mid-engined car and not below the passenger compartment.
This allows the overall design of the car to be as low and sleek as it is, the cabin occupants to not be sat too high (as you often are in EVs with ‘skateboard’ batteries) and will help the car mimic a traditional mid-engined weight distribution for the desirable dynamic traits this yields. This is a sports car, after all. Motors, their placement and power outputs are as yet undisclosed.
Is this the new Audi TT or R8?
Audi CEO Gernard Dollner doesn’t do flights of fancy – few can really afford them at the moment and as such, Concept C comes laden with production intent. A new sports car in this concept’s image will introduce this new design language to Audi’s lineup over the coming years. What will power it? Well, another in the VW group family is preparing a ‘mid-engined’ electric sports car right now – a Taycan/e-tron GT-style marriage of convenience twinning a production version of Concept C with the next Porsche 718 would make an awful lot of sense.
As for its positioning, it is set to be a halo model for Audi. What it won’t be, we think, is a direct replacement for the TT or the R8. If it carries over this concept’s presence, it’ll be something new, something novel, something distinctive – a rarity in today’s market and something Audi sorely needs. What Audi needs more is for it (and the rest of its lineup) to sell.
