Old Concept Cars: Audi Quartz Coupe

The car that you see in the main photo is an old concept car of Audi, called Quartz Coupe, designed by Sergio Pininfarina. In 1980, the Swiss car magazine Automobile Revue was celebrating its 75th birthday and Pininfarina, which had very good relationships with the publishers thought it would be a good idea to gift to the magazine a fully functional prototype.

According to the information of the time, Audi discreetly oversaw the project and Pinifarina designed the new body of the car, using aluminum and kevlar.

Although the Quartz Coupe was shorter by 30 cm from the Ur-Quattro (that it was based on) and lighter by 90 kg, it had small air intakes at the front, as it was quite smaller than the standard model, but the gap between the upper and lower part of the body, provided sufficient cooling for the engine.

The dashboard was remodeled and the interior was quite modern for its time. In tests conducted by the Swiss magazine in 1986, the Quartz Coupe recorded a top speed of 217 km/h and it could reach 100km/h from a standstill in 7.1 seconds.

In 1981, it was presented at the International auto show in Geneva and a few years later it was placed at the museum of Audi in Ingolstadt.