While everybody is doing their best impression of Howard Hughes, hopefully without the jars and long nails, we're trying to remember what ideas the German auto industry had that didn't work out. You know... like the Spruce Goose airplane. One of them was a flagship A9 sedan or coupe, and the last we heard of it was in 2016.
The A9 was supposed to be offered initially as a super-sexy exotic coupe that looked like the legendary Prologue concept. Later, this was supposed to get a sedan version and an e-tron fully-electric setup that would rival the Tesla Model S.
Again, we're not making this up. Four years ago, this seemed like a real idea Audi had, and it was supposed to be developed with a Porsche Panamera Coupe. Whatever happened to the 928's spiritual successor? They even had some prototypes for that.
In the meantime, Audi's world was rocked by the emissions scandal, and although sales are doing fine, development costs have skyrocketed because of all the EVs they're planning.
Eventually, though, Audi is probably going all-in on electric propulsion and will need some kind of luxury flagship. According to the sounds of the current rumor mill, that's supposed to be an SUV, not a sedan.
We don't think they're planning to make this car, but in case they are, here's some nice inspiration. Since showing you that C-Class yesterday, we found Giorgi Tedoradze's YouTube account as well, and we were right about these being sketched in Procreate. Boy, what we wouldn't give to be that productive when we picked up an iPad.
There's something reassuring about an old-fashioned sketch rather than all the 3D stuff going on right now. While futuristic, the A9 e-tron study is still grounded in reality and doesn't have giant wings or flashy wheels.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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