If you think you can build a dining empire exclusively catering for meals between breakfast and brunch, Audi might have a position for you in product planning.
If you want to know why, it’s because cars just don’t get more specialised and niche than the new TT Sportback concept car, which is effectively a five-door version of Audi’s third-generation two-door coupe.
The four-seat concept car has been dubbed an “elongated sculpture” by Audi’s bigwigs, who also point out that it provides a direct link between the TT and the super-luxury A7, stepping across the A5 Sportback along the way.
The five-door liftback is 29cm longer than the TT coupe and 6cm wider, but is actually 3cm lower at the roofline. The rear seat passengers have been given another 12cm of wheelbase to play with, with a 2.63-metre measurement.
It is still a small car, stretching out to just 4.47 metres long to be line ball with the A3 saloon, which is just 4456mm long and also carries a 2.637-metre wheelbase.
However, while the swoopy TT Sportback uses a flat, tapered roofline, pillarless doors and a far more aggressive version of the new TT's grille design, it is not the car that points the way to future Audis. Instead, it looks to the past. This is the last car designed under the Wolfgang Egger regime in Audi design, with all future designs and concept cars, beginning with the A9 at the Los Angeles Motor Show, coming from the direction of Marc Lichte.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have fans within Audi management, who have suggested they could find space in the production capacity for it if people start waving cash around.
"With the TT, Audi created one of the automotive design icons of the last 20 years," Audi's Board Member for Technical Development, Professor Doctor Ulrich Hackenberg, insisted.
“In the years since, we have designed our sport and elegant five-door Audi A5 Sportback and A7 Sportback. In our TT Sportback concept show car, we are now fusing both concepts to form a new member of a potential TT family,” he said.
With a 294kW version of Audi’s EA888 2.0-litre, four-cylinder powerplant upfront, Audi claims the TT Sportback will smash to 100km/h in just 3.9 seconds.
While it hasn’t quoted a top speed, 250km/h would be a safe, if limited, bet. While the engine’s power peaks at 6400rpm, the direct injection, turbo motor will spin out to a 7200rpm rev limiter. Thanks to variable valve timing on both the exhaust and inlet sides, along with Audi’s two-stage valve lift system, it will also deliver 450Nm of torque between 2400rpm and 6000rpm, though there’s already 360Nm working away at 1900rpm.
For all that V8-style performance, the TT Sportback uses a claimed NEDC combined consumption figure of 7.0 litres/100km for a CO2 emission figure of 162 grams/km - not bad for a car with 1.8 bar of turbo pressure.
Ever the all-wheel drive, the TT Sportback uses a variation of the TT Coupe’s Haldex all-wheel drive system and its seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and even copies its architecture. It sits on a modified MQB architecture, with a front end dominated by aluminium and a rear end in heavier steels to try to give the car better handling balance.
It also borrows the new TT’s brilliant cabin layout, complete with the 12.3-inch monitor in the instrument cluster, which does away with traditional multi-media screens in the centre of the dashboard. The cleanliness of the dash is enhanced by having the climate control adjustment inside the vent dial itself.
Outside, a pair of elliptical exhaust tips dominate the flattened, widened tail and 255/30 R21 tyres prop up each corner, while it adopts the latest development of Audi’s Laser Light technology, combined with LEDs, for the headlights. The Laser Lights only begin to operate at speeds above 60km/h, giving dazzlingly white light for up to 600 metres in front of the car.