Iconic Audi TT bows out after three generations and 25 years

Audi will be pulling the plug on its two-door TT sports car in 2023, its demise due to waning consumer interest in sporty two-seater coupés.

Though the car will fade into history, it will do so as an icon that spanned three generations and wrote design history when it was launched 25 years ago.

Inspired by Bauhaus (simple geometric shapes with an emphasis on function), the Coupé study from 1995 began series production in 1998 with Audi designer Torsten Wenzel describing it as “a driving sculpture”.

The sports car struck a chord with people worldwide and by 2006, 178,765 first-generation Audi TT Coupés and 90,733 TT Roadsters had rolled off the production line.

In the mid-1990s, the Audi A8 luxury model elevated the Audi brand to a higher position and gradually led to the renaming of the model series. The Audi 80 became the Audi A4, and the Audi 100 was dubbed the Audi A6. Introduced in 1994, the A4 was the first model to embody Audi’s new design language. Next was the A3 premium compact car, launched in 1996, and the second generation of the A6, introduced in 1997.

In the course of “emotionalising” the brand through a fresh, progressive design, American designer Freeman Thomas, under the then head of design Peter Schreyer, created a puristic sports car in the Audi TT Coupé.

Audi presented the study to an enthusiastic trade show audience at the Frankfurt motor show in September 1995. The model name “TT” was inspired by the legendary Tourist Trophy motorcycle race on the Isle of Man, one of the oldest motorsports events in the world and one where Audi predecessors NSU and DKW celebrated great success with their motorcycles.

The name “TT” also recalled the sporty NSU TT of the 1960s. The Audi TT Coupé’s deliberate departure from the usual Audi nomenclature underscored the complete novelty of the model.

In December 1995, the decision was made to mass-produce the TT Coupé. Torsten Wenzel, the exterior designer at Audi who helped introduce the study to series production, recalls: “To us, the greatest praise was when the trade press noted appreciatively that not much had changed from the study to series model, although we did, of course, have to adapt many details due to the technical specifications for the series version, including the proportions.”

Most noticeable was the integration of a rear side window, which elongated the car’s profile and increased the sports car’s dynamics. For Wenzel, the Audi TT remains “a driving sculpture, with highest-quality surfaces and lines”. The body of the Audi TT appears to be made from one piece, he says, and the front end without traditional bumper overhangs, emphasises its clear form.

Another design element contributes to the unmistakable silhouette of the Audi TT Coupé: the circle — “the perfect graphic shape,” as Wenzel describes it. Numerous circular elements inspired the sports car’s exterior and interior design. Inspired by Bauhaus, every line in the Audi TT has a purpose, every shape a function.

“At Audi Design, we always follow the philosophy of ‘less is more’. Bringing out the Audi TT Coupé’s unique character by reducing it to the essentials was a challenging and special undertaking for us designers,” says Wenzel.

In 1998, series production of the Audi TT Coupé began, and one year later it was joined by the topless TT Roadster.

Like the show car and the Audi A3 launched in 1996, the sports car was based on the transverse engine platform of the VW Golf IV. The range of engines in the first-generation Audi TT came with four-cylinder turbo engines with a power spectrum from 110kW to 165kW and a V6 unit with 184kW.

In the following two generations, the designers stuck with the minimalist design of the exterior and the sleek, driver-oriented interior. The round shape and the circular motif remained, for example, in the aluminum fuel tank cap, the round air vents, the gearshift edging, and the distinctive gear knob.

The second-generation TT was launched in 2006 (Coupé) and 2007 (Roadster) and was based on the platform of the second-generation Audi A3. Adaptive dampers with Audi magnetic ride were used for the first time.

In 2008, the TTS sports model was launched with a 2l turbo engine and 200kW, followed a year later by the TT RS with a 2.5l five-cylinder turbo engine with 250kW  and 265kW in the Audi TT RS plus. Also in 2008, the brand with the four rings launched the TT 2.0 TDI quattro — the world’s first production sports car to run on a diesel engine.

The third generation of the Audi TT was launched in 2014 — and again, Audi used the new generation to reduce its weight. Designers reinterpreted the unmistakable lines of the original TT from 1998 for the modern age. They enriched them with numerous dynamic facets, while the round fuel tank cap with typical TT lettering remained true across the generations.

This model marked the debut of the Audi virtual cockpit, a fully digital instrument panel with highly detailed, versatile displays that replaced analog instruments and the MMI monitor. In 2016, a new era for automotive lighting technology began in the Audi TT RS, when Audi used organic LEDs, known as OLED technology, for the first time.

The top model is the TT RS, with the 2.5l five-cylinder turbo unit boosted to 294kW, and this engine was named “International Engine of the Year” nine times in a row.

In its final year, the TT is available in South Africa in three models: the TTS Coupé quattro, TT RS Coupé quattro and TT roadster Coupé quattro.