Audi’s new TT coupe is pumped and fierce

Dan Carney • E-mail

In 1998, Audi launched the Bauhaus-inspired TT, marking the German carmaker’s ascension as the car industry’s design leader. That same year Apple launched the iMac, which sold on the strength of its translucent candy-colored all-in-one design.

What’s the connection between Audi and Apple? Both companies have achieved popular success and critical acclaim in the last decade as the result of a dedication to smart, sophisticated design that makes customers pine for their products. They also have price tags that can be off-putting for those who may not appreciate such details.

Whether with retro-futuristic cars or cleverly styled computers, both Audi and Apple have also set the standard for design in their respective industries. But while the short product cycles of the computer industry have seen the iMac evolve dramatically through several new generations of design, Audi’s landmark TT remained in production for a decade until it was finally replaced this year with a freshly styled model.

The challenge, in such cases, is to maintain the momentum of the original design, without clinging to it so completely that the new design stagnates. Apple has aggressively pressed forward with futuristic new designs that completely discarded the original design in favor of something even more avant garde.

TT fans may debate whether its new design advances or retreats from the bold statement made by the original, but the verdict is in from the experts on the World Car of the Year jury, which last April named the new TT the winner of its World Car Design of the Year award.

Audi The new 250 horsepower V-6 engine propels the 3,200 pound TT with vigor, and it leaves a great sound in its wake while doing so.

While the old TT was a softly organic design, with plenty of curved surfaces and symmetrical shapes, the new car looks pumped up, as if by a gym membership. It’s stretched and widened by a growth spurt, and given fearsome angular looks by a dose of ill intent.

This aggressive new look demands respect, particularly of those who dismissed the old car for looking too feminine, and those male buyers who couldn’t quite see themselves driving the previous model should be won over by its looks. There’s also a significant, if invisible, change under the muscular and aggressively creased new skin of the 2008 TT — a new aluminum frame that makes the bigger new model stronger without adding weight.

For all of its groundbreaking style, the original TT was never a driver’s car, not even in the top-of-the-line quattro all-wheel-drive configuration. It was based on the same low-rent platform as the pedestrian Volkswagen Golf, and it showed in the TT’s indifferent handling. But with its new aluminum frame, the 2008 TT has become an authentic enthusiasts’ car, especially in its V-6-powered, quattro-propelled form.

The real test of the TT as a sport coupe is a drive on twisty roads, and here the new TT delivers in ways the old car never could. The all-wheel-drive quattro TT grips the road like a Velcro stuck on your most expensive and delicate new tie. While this denies the driver the fun of tossing the car around in the manner of a Mazda MX-5 Miata, it does inspire immense confidence, as the car goes exactly where it is pointed, and very quickly.

Unlike powerful front-drive cars, the quattro TT suffers no torque steer (when the engine tugs the steering wheel in one direction or the other). There is, however, at times a touch of understeer.

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