We Finance 12 Awd Premium Turbo Leather Heated Seats Cd Stereo Xenons Bluetooth on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Audi TT RS shows its meaner face in new spy shots

When it launched, the original Audi TT RS was considered quite a sharp combination, melding a 360-horsepower turbocharged engine and all-wheel drive into a rather lithe, little coupe. Audi is ready to revive that great idea and is preparing for a return on the automaker's latest platform. Thanks to these new spy shots from near the Nurburgring, we can at least get a good idea aesthetically of what's in store for this future member of the RS family. There's absolutely nothing subtle about the front end, and the camouflage does little to hide the larger intakes at each corner. In profile, you can also spot larger brake discs peeking out from behind the wheels, and the side sills appear slightly thicker than the current TTS. The rear is all business, as well, with a lower apron and two big oval exhausts. The new TT RS reportedly arrives in 2016, at least in Europe, and a debut is possible at the Geneva Motor Show in March. The coupe would then potentially come to the US later in the calendar for the 2017 model year. Unlike the last TT here, which got a manual transmission, rumors suggest that the latest one would only offer a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox. There's not likely to be any disappointment about the power, though, because it supposedly grows to about 400 hp thanks to an upgraded 2.5-liter turbocharged five-cylinder. Related Video:

Audi calls R18 E-Tron Quattro its 'most complex race car'

Technically speaking, Audi's R18 E-Tron Quattro is quite technical. The German automaker says the diesel-hybrid is the "most complex race car" it's ever created. And we'll take their word for it. The Audi, which pairs a V6 turbodiesel powering the rear wheels with two electric motors, is all about connectivity, giving the car's crew the opportunity to constantly monitor the vehicle while it's racing. The car sends in a host of data each lap to the crew's computers, and the vehicle's telemetry system constantly keeps tabs on things like hybrid energy levels, cockpit temperature and boost-pressure levels. In all, the amount of data parameters is more than 100 times greater than in 1989, when Audi first tested a race car equipped with automatic data transmission capabilities. Audi first released specs on the updated version of the R18 E-Tron Quattro late last year, trumpeting the vehicle's advantages in competing in the LMP1 class of the 2014 World Endurance Championship (WEC). Audi made the car a little narrower and a little taller and it complies with a new WEC regulation requiring the front end set off by a new wing. Take a look at Audi's most recent press release below. AUDI R18 E-TRON QUATTRO WITH COMPLEX ELECTRONIC ARCHITECTURE • Telemetry connection between race car and pit lane • Permanent acquisition of far more than 1,000 parameters • Various electronic control units interlinked by a multitude of CAN Bus systems Ingolstadt, May 5, 2014 – The Audi R18 e-tron quattro is the most complex race car created in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm to date. This not only applies to the mechanics. The electronics of the most recent LMP1 race car with the four rings is more sophisticated than ever before. The age of electronic data transmission from the race car on track began for Audi in 1989. At that time, an Audi 90 quattro in the IMSA GTO series radioed eight parameters to the garage where engine speeds and a few pressures and temperatures were plotted on printouts – a tiny step from today's perspective, but one that provided important insights at the time. Today, an Audi R18 e-tron quattro on more than a thousand channels, in cycles that in some cases only amount to milliseconds, generates data of crucial importance to a staff of engineers at Audi Sport. At Le Mans, the engineers constantly monitor their race cars for 24 hours.

Audi's Quattro division is now Audi Sport, and it has 8 new models on the way

Audi announced today that its Quattro GmbH performance and technology division will officially be renamed Audi Sport GmbH. The name change is the first since the division's introduction in 1983, and it should more clearly describe its function within the company and remove confusion with the Quattro all-wheel-drive system offered on all Audis, sporty or not. With its new name, Audi Sport will continue to handle the brand's RS models, the R8, customer race cars, customized road cars, and Audi Sport lifestyle products. While the clearer new name is good news, we're more interested in the division's announcement that it will release eight new cars in the next 18 months. The company didn't reveal exactly which cars these will be, but it did clarify which cars Audi Sport is currently responsible for. These include all variants of the RS 3, RS Q3 crossover, RS 6, RS 7, TT RS, R8, and S8 plus. Since the A4/S4 and A5/S5 models were just redone, we can guess that they will be next on the list for RS-ification, resulting in new RS 4 and RS 5 models. If that includes Sportback, coupe, and cabrio versions of the RS 5, and an RS 4 sedan and Avant, that would put us up to five already. Both the A6 and A7 have only seen a minor refresh recently, so it's likely that we'll see new versions of each soon followed by their own RS variants. However, whether those fit in the 18-month window will depend on how soon we see the standard models. Our other guesses are a bit fuzzier, and based completely on speculation. We could imagine one or two ultra-high-performance R8 models being announced – something like the last-gen R8 GT, perhaps offered in coupe and spyder forms – as well as RS versions of the other members in Audi's crossover fleet, the Q5 and Q7. It's also possible one of the models could be a new customer race car, since Audi Sport currently builds and sells the R8 LMS race car. At the very least, we know the Audi Sport folks are busy and people will no longer get them confused with an all-wheel-drive system. Related Video: