Unveiled in Frankfurt: the Audi Le Mans Quattro
Even the first glimpse of the car gives the observer a clear picture of its calibre.
The Audi Le Mans quattro, with its Jet Blue paint finish, has a wide stance and a bullish appearance on the road. Its powerful rear end seems to be bracing its muscles in order to jump, like a sprinter on the starting line.
The body makes a compact impression. The car’s front and the flat curve of the roof outline seem to have been sketched with a single sweeping stroke: a line that identifies the two-seater instantly as an Audi, since together with the front curve of the front wings it recalls the Audi TT and the Nuvolari quattro GT study.
Familiar contours at the sides too: both the dynamic, waisted line above the sill and the shoulder line link the car’s front, sides and tail end together; the doors and the transition to the side air inlet are particularly well sculpted and emphasise the typical round Audi wheel arches with large 20-inch wheels in an even more intensive way.
The windscreen seems to grow directly out of the short front section. Its glass has been given a hydrophobic (water-repellent) coating - an achievement derived from nano-technology - which is also highly resistant to dirt. A similar micro-coating helps to reduce the penetration of ultraviolet and infrared rays and prevent the interior from heating up.
The Audi Le Mans quattro is a markedly ‘cab forward’ design, typical of a mid-engined sports car and with visible echoes of the Audi R8. Behind the occupant area but ahead of the rear axle is the V10 engine with its twin turbochargers: a technical sculpture that is visible from the inside of the car and also through a large, transparent rear flap. 1.90 metres wide but only 4.37 metres long and 1.25 metres high: those are the proportions of a supersport model. The 2.65 m long wheelbase accommodates a remarkably spacious occupant area and the longitudinally installed engine behind it. To the rear of the doors, between the sill and the roof, there is a large outwardcurving intake that supplies the V10 engine, the oil cooler, the charge-air intercooler and the brakes with sufficient air.
The trapezoidal shape of the Audi ‘single-frame’ grille is a distinctive feature of the front end, flanked on the right and left by additional large air inlets. Their upper ends are flush with the flat-strip LED headlights, which have clear-glass covers. The centre of the bonnet, carrying the four-ring badge, continues the dynamic line of the low central radiator grille typical of a sports car such as this.
It curves up above the line of the front wings, which spread out at the sides over
the large round wheel arches typical of an Audi.
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