This week’s throwback Thursday is a concept car that was never intended to make it to production yet paved the way for a manufacturer’s unexpected yet undoubted success in the supercar market. The Audi Rosemeyer came at a time when the fiercest car the marquee made was the brand new TT, and that wasn’t exactly the most masculine or fire breathing of sports cars. The concept emerged before the hypercars of the Veyron or Pagani’s of the world existed, and the impact generated by its immense size and proposed powerplant created instant attention for the brand. It cemented their once illustrious vision as a world beater and creator of the fastest machines the world had seen, proposing performance figures that the world had yet seen the likes of and proving that the maker of luxury saloons was ready to prove it again.
Audi’s design direction at the time was taking a turn for the better, with the boxy square styling of the 80’s and 90’s being replaced by their ultra chic styling ethos. What started with the TT, a homage to the Bauhaus art movement and the ultimate in effortless style famously over driving thrill or function, started a whole new era from the Ingolstadt company. The company was on a design mission and they haven’t looked back since.
The Rosemeyer intended to merge their new found flair with their historic and illustrious racing motorsport, although from the early days, not their bonkers fire breathing rallying era. The concept took cues from the TT and turned them all the way up to eleven. Those oversized wheel arches, heavily curved bodywork and beetle (animal, not hippy car) roofline are borrowed directly from the then newly launched TT sports car. Looking like an overgrown TT on steroids, the Rosemeyer concept took obvious styling cues from the sports coupe as well as harking back to Audi’s former historic motor racing success. The over sized grille was a nod to the Auto-Union racers of the 1930’s, finished in the same bright silver and appearing just as sleek and huge in its proportions. The vintage styling made the machine look more like a suit of armour in form, glinting in aluminium silver and abundant with creases and slashes. The long sculpted form with its creases and panels abundant with vents gave a menacing purposeful stance hinting at the firepower it contained. The machine was a surprising bombshell from a usually reserved sensible stereotypical German company.
Having the TT as a base for a design was always going to be a great place to start, and the Auto-Union racing machines of the past were just as sleek and curvaceous aiding the ability to merge the designs. The Auto-Union influenced grille was flanked on the Rosemeyer by the same recessed squared off headlight covers hiding an array of circular projection lights found on the TT. Simple bold lines formed the styling of the bodywork and integrated with the curved shapes in a similar Bauhaus style. Panels were just as flat in form and devoid of creases, mouldings or angles apart from the bulbous protruding wheel arches in each corner. The upright windscreen curing round the cabin creating the curvaceous roof line extends much further than the TT, probably due to both aerodynamic reasoning and a necessary modification to aid aerodynamic properties. Gone is the curved yet pert rear bootlid that famously graced the TT rear and instead the heavily vented engine cover extends fastback style all the way to the back. The fastback rear created a sleeker, narrower back to the car, retaining the twin pipes at the back but obviously much larger in girth. It seemed to look like someone had attempted to squeeze as much power and engine into their TT causing necessary heavy body modifications, yet produced a hybrid Frankenstein of a machine that still retains its good looks and effortless curb appeal. From the description it shouldn’t work, but aesthetically for an early 2000’s machine, it retained all the appeal that Audi had begun to show they can create.
Sucked in by the striking design and desirability the Rosemeyer stirred emotions and created the publicity and popularity for the brand that Audi intended. They stuck by their guns and the not for production supercar remained consigned to the history book without selling a single example. Yet a marketing exercise wasn’t all that the outlandish car created for the Bavarian marque, it powered the design direction for the future of Audi’s most desirable models. The ability for the Audi brand to be regarded as a luxury derivative of the Volkswagen group was never going to be enough to only sell prestige large saloon cars. They had created a style statement with the TT, proving they can create design classics of the future, and intended to continue being ambitious until they stirred the established brands from their comfortable perches. The Rosemeyer gave the public a hint that they could use their design flair to make desirable machines, yet give them the power to prove their engineering prowess. It may have taken another decade for the brand to give us the now iconic R8, but that car owes much of its existence to the Rosemeyer concept. Producing a machine with such beauty and desirability, yet the driving thrill and performance to match was a vision they had planted with the Rosemeyer and continue to create with their supercar and RS models of today.
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