Audi Quattro Concept

“Please, slow down,” Peter says calmly as we cut through the curvaceous Pacific Coast Highway. The central screen on the high-definition LCD instrument cluster of the Audi quattro Concept shows 48 kmh, or just over 29 mph.

Is he serious?!

“Okay, sounds good,” I reply.

A quick downshift into second gear and a dab of the touchy 15-inch carbon ceramics turns our slow pace into a near crawl. The wrist slap lasts only seconds, though. A short uphill straight resides ahead, and my urge to go faster can’t be ignored.

My right foot lowers to send the 408-horsepower turbocharged inline-five cylinder heart past 4000 rpm, and the mill immediately responds with the deep, offbeat rumble only a healthy straight-five can make. Every sound echoes through the barren carbon-fiber cocoon. With each lull between gear changes comes a delicious WRC-like WHOOOOOSH!!!! from the wastegate. Upshifting shoves us back into the carbon-fiber buckets as torque and speed increase.

“Please! Please! Again, slow down,” my German-born passenger says, now annoyed at my blistering 42-mph run.

Peter isn’t afraid of speed. As one of the lead creators of the last two RS 6 models (the ones packing around 500 hp), he knows speed well. He is, however, afraid that I’ll turn his latest pride and joy into another inanimate object. It’s completely understandable — the car is unofficially valued at more than $5.2 million.

But the quattro Concept represents much more than an ueber-hefty price tag. Its existence is a celebration of the original Sport Quattro’s 30th birthday. If you missed class, the Sport Quattro was a limited production, stripped-out, purpose-built, barely-streetable road car that demonstrated the cunningness of all-wheel drive outside of the era’s usual SUV or truck applications. If it wasn’t for the Sport Quattro and the tedious research and development behind it, many road cars, not to mention racecars (hence the WRC-esque wastegate), would be quite different today.

Like its forefather, the quattro Concept is a rolling showcase of cutting-edge design and technology destined to trickle down into upcoming Audi models. That includes technology like the bespoke Audi Space Frame made entirely of lightweight aluminum. Yes, ASFs are nothing new. Audi has been underpinning its cars with them for years, but this particular edition is a carbon copy of the RS 5′s steel frame, the model on which the concept is based.

Carbon-fiber panels take the place of the RS 5′s many steel and aluminum facades as well. The switch from steel to aluminum (and metal to composites) saves weight, improves performance, and will likely be a widespread practice among all Audi vehicles in the next few years. The end result of the Concept’s diet: a slim 2866-pound curb weight, nearly the same as the 2838-pound elder Quattro. (That’s no coincidence — designers aimed to get as close as possible.)

Dimensionally, the concept is smaller than the RS 5. Rear overhang was cut by 7.9 inches and the wheelbase shortened nearly 6 inches to102.4 inches, while the roofline was trimmed by 1.6 inches. Overall, the concept loses just over a foot (14.5 inches) in length compared to the RS 5.

The deep, sharp lines and classic Quattro traits (hood vent, rear spoiler, cat-like all-LED headlamps, bulging shoulders, stamped four rings logos, chiseled front and rear bumpers) coalesce to form a very attractive, muscular, “Tron”-like physique. (Expect coming Audis to shrink slightly and exhibit certain styling elements in as early as one year, one engineer said).

On the serpentine hills above Malibu I get my first taste of Ingolstadt’s latest quattro all-wheel drive system. Essentially the same setup used by the RS 5, it employs a crown-gear center differential that, under normal driving conditions, sends 40 percent of available torque to the front wheels, and the rest to the rear. Go into a corner with gusto and the diff can revise the torque split to send up to 70 percent to the front axle, or conversely, 85 percent out back.

Designers also included the brand’s sport rear differential that varies torque between rear wheels (side to side) and replaced all significant suspension components with aluminum iterations.

Unfortunately, between my co-pilot biting his nails and the two-way radio yelling what likely are expletive-filled German commands, any chance of testing the sophisticated quattro’s limits is next to nil.

But I have an idea: Keep Peter talking.

“So is this your first time in Los Angeles? How do you like the weather so far? I bet you’re not used to the potholed roads, right?” I ask.

As I Gatling-gun my questions, we encounter a sweeping left decreasing radius bend. Perfect timing. One upshift later and the LCD reads 70 kmh, or around 44 mph. The lightly weighted steering (remember, Peter points out, it is a prototype) confirms what I originally surmised: This car grips absurdly well. To understand the prototype’s swagger, imagine the weight of a Mitsubishi Evolution X combined with the compactness of an Audi A3 2.0T. Then mix in the gluey grip of 20-inch Dunlop rubber at each corner and over 100 more horsepower.

“Yes, it is. Right now it is snowing back home, so I love this weather! My wife would, too. I leave on Saturday. Then back to the cold.” Peter says.”And the roads here are horrible. This is how they all are?”

Feeling the engine tap its 354 pound-foot reserve, I fire another complicated question his way. “Yes, unfortunately in L.A., they mostly are. So how did you end up with the five-cylinder?”

“Ah yes. When picking the engine, there were three options: the V-8 from the RS 5, the S4′s supercharged V-6, or the TT-RS’s inline-five cylinder,” Peter says over the burbling exhaust. “We chose the five-cylinder because it is light, little, and because of the Sport Quattro, which had a five-cylinder.”

With the 403-pound 2.5-liter on board, next came the transmission. “You know, the RS 5 has the S Tronic double clutch, but we put in the six-speed manual. It is a few kilos lighter than the S Tronic and is very sporty.”