This means there needs to be an element of inherent universality – an adaptability – that allows Audi’s defining cues to be applied across the range to types of car that simply didn’t exist in the original TT’s time.
Frascella baulks at the idea of a ‘Russian doll’ line-up but acknowledges that “there needs to be a connection that makes you look at things and makes you feel: ‘Yeah, this is Audi.'”
“Of course, you can’t take the Concept C and morph it into an SUV. That would be not the right thing to do,” says Frascella. Instead, it’s a question of adapting the concept’s themes to suit different segments and target markets.
“I go back to the four pillars of our design strategy: the clarity, the technicality, the intelligence, the emotion. You apply those principles to an SUV or to a sedan, and then clearly there are certain logical surface treatments or maybe line executions that could connect them visually,” he adds.
Audi has been here before, Frascella reminds us, pointing to the original TT and the contemporary A2 – clearly related by its one-bow silhouette and Bauhaus-flavoured adornments – as shining examples: “They almost share the same design elements, but the cars are completely different in character.”
He stops short of outlining exactly how a huge seven-seater, for example, could take its lead from the two-seat Concept C but suggests the relationship will be obvious purely by dint of a common sense of restraint.
“This principle of reducing complexity in the form will be applied to all of them. That’s a way to connect the cars together,” he explains.
We still have some time before Frascella’s vision reaches the roads, because the production version of the Concept C isn’t planned to be launched before late next year.
But his wilful rejection of passing trends and ardent commitment to timelessness mean that even this lengthy lead time between vision and fruition shouldn’t stand in the way of his cars’ shock value and visual allure.
Clearly, he’s designing for a new audience and a new age but, above all, it’s hard to escape the notion that he’s partly designing for some young automotive design student who one day soon will walk into an Audi dealership and have their mind blown and their destiny rewritten – and then we can start all over again.
