Audi’s enthusiast appeal definitely suffered when it waved goodbye to the TT and R8 in short order. The E-Tron GT still exists, sure, but the purity of a sports car is missing from the lineup. Not to worry, though; Audi has been leaving hints left and right that it’s only a matter of time before something new rises from the ashes of those coupes. And now, it’s given us this—the Concept C, debuting at the upcoming IAA Mobility Show in Munich—as a peek at what’s to come.
That name is underselling things a bit, because Audi’s CEO Gernot Döllner said it himself: The Concept C will enter production in 2027, and it will look a lot like this. The chief executive told Bloomberg he expects to sell “a very low five-digit number” of these worldwide, starting at a price between the TT’s ($60,000) and the R8’s ($160,000).
From the side, the Concept C is minimalist, but also in a traditionally Audi way. The consistent curve from the rear deck to the windshield; the unbroken, monolithic look that conveys a vehicle milled from solid metal. Cynics will say that Audi has pulled a page from Jaguar’s playbook of publicity, but we’d argue Ingolstadt did this first. There is certainly a throughline here that carries from the original TT, and the automaker also cites the Auto Union Type C of 1936, as well as the B7 Audi A4 that entered production in 2004, as key influences.
However, that influence isn’t exactly clear until you look at the Concept C head-on. Yeah, this is going to be a polarizing look. The upright nature of the faux grille, coupled with the vertical intakes, is intended to evoke vintage racers like the Type C. Meanwhile, the company says the four-beam lighting elements will “define Audi’s visual identity during both day and night” in upcoming models.
The Concept C also incorporates a power retractable hardtop—something none of Audi’s sports cars have had to date—and the way the canopy flows into the rear, together with the stance of the wheels, certainly has a first-gen R8 quality to it. Naturally, the Concept C is an EV, and Audi says the car’s been designed with a centrally mounted battery pack in mind.
The interior is utilitarian and mechanical, but in an elegant, golden-era Audi way, with its brushed aluminum buttons, knobs, and switches that look exquisitely weighted. Audi’s design brass describes the aesthetic as “radical simplicity,” and that would seem to be a good name for it.
With production set to begin in 2027, Audi has some time to make tweaks where it sees fit. If we had to guess, the Concept C’s final form could share underpinnings with Porsche’s upcoming electric 718 replacement. But Audi isn’t talking about performance just yet, nor does it necessarily need to. That new face is bound to carry conversations for a good few weeks.
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.