Audi looks back to the future with TT-inspired Concept C

Audi has unveiled its Concept C, a two-seater, all-electric sports car previewing a radical new design language for most of the Ingolstadt carmaker’s upcoming models.

Unveiled at a dedicated event in Milan a week before its public debut at the upcoming Munich motor show, the Concept C will go on sale largely unaltered in 2027. It is the first car to mark Audi’s full design and strategy pivot, as it looks to bounce back from a challenging few years of declining sales and weakened profit margins.

In 2024, Audi posted a 7.6% reduction in overall revenue, and a drop in profits of more than three percentage points. While competition from China, supply chain issues, and global political tensions have factored into Audi’s recent decline, quality control issues, overly-fussy design, an overreliance on tech, and a bizarre model naming system – from which it has since u-turned – have also played a part.

To claw back ground, the Concept C marks a return to a fundamental of made Audi great in the first place – timeless design inside and out, which is something of a priority for new design chief Massimo Frascella.

The Concept C’s exterior is marked by minimalist lines, and a shape inspired by the original 1998 Audi TT. Meanwhile, the vertical grille up-front is a nod to the C6-generation Audi A6 from 2006, and the all-conquering Auto Union Type C Grand Prix racer of the 1930s.

Around the back, things are just as clean and the Concept C does away with the aggressive fake mesh found on recent performance-focused Audis  such as the RS3 and Q5. LEDs comprising four elements mirror those up front, and a rear window is replaced by a slat system not dissimilar to that found on Audi’s ultra-successful R8 LMS endurance racer.

Inside, the Concept C is equally as unfussy. Replacing Audi’s current gloss black, massive screen-heavy affairs, there’s plenty of of knurled, anodised aluminium switchgear promising the signature Audi ‘click’ of older models, and a single screen hidden behind a dashboard-mounted panel.

The HVAC system is controlled by a series of haptic-touch switches hidden beneath the dashboard’s fabric upholstery, and the current square steering wheel – with its plastic four rings logo – has been dropped in favour of a circular unit finished with knurled metal badging.

Whether the Concept C will be known as the Audi TT when it hits the market within the next two years remains to be seen. What is confirmed, though, is that it will be fully-electric and use an adapted version of the Porsche-Audi developed PPE platform. Unsurprisingly, the Concept C will adopt the same centrally-mounted battery pack as the upcoming Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman EVs.

The Audi Concept C will also feature a retractable hardtop, a first for any Audi convertible in the company’s history.

As well as the Concept C, Frascella will oversee the design of Audi’s upcoming entry-level EV expected to be called the A2 or A3 e-tron, all-electric versions of the A4 and the A8, plus the Q9 – a full-blown rival to the latest-gen Range Rover, which Frascella penned prior to jumping ship to Ingolstadt.