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Audi pits S3 against Ur-Quattro on gravel

If you had to pick a winner between the latest Audi S3 and the original Audi Sport Quattro, which would it be? Both hot hatches pack around 300 horsepower and all-wheel drive, but they're separated by a good thirty years of development.
To find out, Audi took both to the old rally circuit in San Remo. Behind the wheel of the Ur-Quattro they put none other than The Stig himself - no, not the Top Gear test bot, but Stig Blomqvist, the Swedish former rally driver who drove the Quattro to the World Rally Championship in the mid-80s. In the S3 they put someone named Hermann Müller, who as best we can tell was one of Auto Union's original Silver Arrow drivers - but he died in 1975, so it's probably the guy who writes for the Audi magazine. Regardless, the contest was pretty close, so it's worth checking out in the 2:26 video clip below.

Audi TT Ultra Quattro Concept throws lightness at the problem

Audi is celebrating the 2013 Wörthersee Tour with a special concept version of the company's TT. The Audi TT Ultra Quattro concept tips the scales at just 2,449 pounds thanks to some extensive engineering work. The company pulled nearly 95 lbs from the car's body structure and used carbon-fiber reinforced plastics for many of its detachable body components. As a result, the concept weighs in at a full 220 pounds lighter than its production counterpart. Throw in a wicked turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine with 310 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque, and you get a machine with the power to weight ratio in the supercar realm. 0-60 comes up in 4.2 seconds and top speed is listed at 173 mph.
Inside, the TT Ultra Quattro features plenty of carbon fiber trim, and designers also fitted the seats from the R8 GT to save a little weight. The buckets use CFRP for the seat frames, saving nearly 50 pounds in the process. In a world where automakers seem blind to the negative effect of throwing more heft at a vehicle, we're in love with the Ultra Quattro concept. Check out the full press release below for more information.

New Audi Allroad Shooting Brake concept images leak out, next TT previewed?

The Detroit Auto Show media preview kicks off on Monday, which means the time is just about ripe for previously embargoed images and information to start leaking out onto the web in a major way. Case in point is this Allroad Shooting Brake from Audi, a seemingly close-to-production vehicle that may foreshadow the styling of the upcoming Audi TT, or hint at the looks of a Q1, or both.
The TT bit may seem far fetched, but we do know that Audi has used a small wagon concept to preview the design of an upcoming TT before - back in 2006 before the release of the gen-two car. We also fully anticipate the Q1 to be breaking cover sooner rather than later, so the safe money is that the concept closely resembles what that production vehicle will ultimately look like, though perhaps with a bit more height overall.
And, frankly, be it a TT or Q1 or both, we like what we're seeing. Sharp character lines on a rounded body form follow the idiom of the current TT rather nicely, while the big-wheels-at-all-corners stance plays into the sporting character we'd expect from any small Audi. Inside, we see the same Virtual Cockpit, MMI controller, and vents that we recently took in at CES, though with a slightly different steering wheel (with the starter button built right in). Tidy work here, too.