Audi Metroproject quattro Concept: Audi A1 Emerges

Motoring Channel Staff - 19/October/2007

Ingolstadt, Germany — The Audi A1 has finally broken cover. To be unveiled in the flesh at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show, the Audi Metroproject quattro concept will be the world's first look at the most affordable Audi yet.

It's also one of the most attractive looking compact cars to emerge from Germany in quite some time, and the changes between this concept car and the production A1 are not expected to be significant. What you see here is what you will get in 2009 when the new A1 goes on sale.

The head of Audi's technical development, Michael Dick, revealed that the A1 would be sportier than the Mini Cooper, the vehicle it has hopes to depose as the #1 prestige compact car.

The new design faithfully bears the Audi trademark styling cues - the people-eating single frame grille, the quietly confident road stance and strong belt line - but this car introduces something Audi has never really aimed for. Cuteness.

There's a real sense of the 'cute' Mini Cooper in the design, seen most clearly in the rounded forms at the front and rear in the fog lights and exhaust pipes respectively. Even the rounded roofline is more like a Mini Cooper than a traditional Audi, which may inflame another round of marketing warfare between BMW and Audi (BMW owns the Mini brand).

Even the interior seems to have echoes of the Mini Cooper, with a fun, approachable design with lots of spheres and nothing too complex. As Audi's chief of technical development, Michael Dick said, "When a father sits gladly in his daughter's car, then we've got it spot on."

So while Audi will be pitching the vehicle at a younger buyers, it also hopes to pique the interest of young-at-heart buyers, a mature aged demographic with a sense of fun who don't want to be seen driving a dull and boring templated German car that looks like the rest of them.

The Audi Metroproject quattro concept appears to be powered by a hybrid engine, with a small combustion engine and battery pack, but whether this powertrain will make it into the final Audi A1 product is not yet clear. More likely engine types will be small capacity, low emission turbo petrol and diesel engines from as small as 1.2-litres to about 2.0-litres in size that can also provide good performance.

TSI engines are almost guaranteed, such as the 1.4-litre turbo and supercharged engined first seen in this country in the Volkswagen Golf GT (tested here) which outputs 125kW while emitting low levels of CO2. The range-topping models, possibly powered by the next generation 2.0-litre FSI turbo, would deliver more than 150kW to all four wheels in what could well be badged as the Audi S1 - the sports version of the A1.

Audi has huge plans for the new A1, shown for the first time in concept form as the Audi Metroproject quattro. Unlike the car's size, the marketing campaign will be huge and we'll bring you all the updates here at the Motoring Channel. For now, enjoy the first images.

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