Audi debates the next TT

AUDI officials concede that improving on the TT coupe’s slinky styling will be difficult, but have confirmed a replacement for the original will be launched within three years.

“There will be a TT successor in two-and-a-half to three years,” Audi Australian managing director Joerg Hofmann told GoAuto.

“Changing this car is a challenge, a most difficult thing to do for designers. Whatever they do will be wrong. If we change it too much it won’t be attractive, if we don’t change it enough it will be criticised for not being new enough. But we have to survive with the car for such a long time,” he said.

Expected to appear globally by late 2007, the second generation TT coupe will follow a spate of new model activity from Audi over the next 18 months.

First cab off the rank will be the five-door version of the all-new A3 hatch released in July this year. Due for launch in January – the same month Audi’s range-topping TT 3.2 quattro hits dealer showrooms – the A3 Sportback will also offer 1.6, 2.0 and 3.2-litre petrol engines, plus 2.0 turbo-diesel motivation.

The following month will see the arrival of Audi’s other volume-selling model, the heavily facelifted A4 sedan.

Presenting Audi’s new single-frame corporate grille, the B7-generation A4 will play an important role in Audi’s sales ambitions and is likely to represent good value when it goes on sale here from February.

Also due on sale here by the end of 2005 is the new A6 Avant, but biggest fanfare will be reserved for the arrival of Audi’s first dedicated SUV in 2006. Dubbed Q7 and based on the VW Touareg/Porsche Cayenne, Q7 is a development of the Pikes Peak concept and hopes to tap into Australians’ increasing hunger for large SUVs.

Australia will be a key market for Q7, which – along with a smaller A4-based Q5 due in 2008 – is expected to account for 15 per cent of the 10,000 sales Audi Australia has targeted within five years. As such, Q7’s local on-sale date has been fast-tracked to occur by mid-2006 – just three months after it goes on sale in Europe and the US, instead of following more than nine months later in late 2006.

“Australia is a right-hand drive market like the UK, so we should come as close as possible to the UK in terms of on-sale,” said Mr Hofmann. “Child seats and the like are the only ADR issues, so Australia should be just three months after the US and European markets launch in early 2006. Q7 will be a key car for us and Australia will be a key market for Audi.” Unlike its Volkswagen and Porsche donor vehicles, Q7 is expected to feature seven seats. It will launch with 4.2-litre V8 power, but should also eventually offer V6 petrol and V6 and V8 diesel engines.