Audi Sport CEO Stephan Winklemann says fans can expect to see “more emotion” in the styling of vehicles coming out of Ingolstadt in the future.
Winklemann told CarAdvice that more “distinctively” designed offerings were on the cards.
“Our design chief, Marc Lichte, and his team are also designing the standard Audi models in a sportier way, so you can expect to see more emotion in our cars over the next few years,” the 52-year-old former Lamborghini CEO told the Australian publication.
“This is just the first glimpse, but expect to see more distinctive cars from us, at least for the next three years,” he added.
Winklemann revealed that the styling of the new RS5 coupé was a hint of what future models from Audi Sport would look like.
“For me, styling in the RS models is an evolution, and here with the new Audi RS5 we see the first imprint of what the future is going to look like with some reminiscence of the past, with styling cues from the [Audi 90 quattro] IMSA GTO using the front and rear inlets either side of the light assemblies, but that’s just a hint,” he said.
The new, second-generation RS5 employs a turbocharged V6 rather than the naturally aspirated V8 in the original, but Winklemann says this forced induction unit is a “perfect fit”.
“Every car needs the right engine at the right time and Audi Sport, or quattro, as it was previously known, has already used turbo engines ten years ago, so this is not new to us,” he told CarAdvice.
“And I think the new V6 fits perfectly with the RS5 with the right amount of power and a lot more torque than the V8. This is exactly the right engine for this car, at this time. For the R8, we still have a naturally aspirated V10, and in the previous model, we had a naturally aspirated V8, which again, was the right engine for the right time.
“Our approach with the new RS5 was to have a car which is very drivable, very comfortable and also very dynamic. It’s a car that has a much wider breadth of capability that gives drivers a choice in terms of how they want to use the car.”
