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Michael Taylor27 Jan 2016
NEWS

GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Audi prepping all-new Q2

Pre-Geneva show debut for Audi’s smallest SUV as Q4 and TT crossovers also take shape

Audi will stick its shiny new Q2 badge onto this all-new compact urban SUV, which will be revealed just before its public debut at the Geneva motor show in March.

The smallest SUV in the Audi armoury, the — formerly referred to as the Q1, which will be an even smaller SUV to come later — will be designed with a far younger audience in mind than Audi has ever considered, aiming even younger than the A1 hatch.

Based off the A3’s MQB architecture, the Q2 will come with front-wheel drive entry-level models all the way up to all-wheel drive quattro versions at the top end.

It will be significantly shorter than the Q3, so much so that it will also be the second shortest MQB car (after the TT) in the entire Volkswagen Group, though it will have five doors.

The shrinkage is not as drastic as it sounds because, at 2601mm, the three-door A3 has a wheelbase only 35mm shorter than the five-door Sportback or the four-door sedan.

A three-door version was considered, but sources suggest it has been dropped, but the overall length will be less than 4.3 metres and the crossover SUV is expected to weigh less than 1200kg.

The car is due on sale in the third quarter of this year and will be based around the layout of the three-door A3, but Audi insists it will deliver a comfortable interior thanks to higher seating positions.

It will be the first production Audi to come from the team of design boss Marc Lichte, who came from Volkswagen to replace Wolfgang Egger late in 2013.

Lichte came from working on the Scirocco and Golf 7 to announce his arrival at Audi with the stunning prologue concept car in 2014, which was followed by avant and allroad versions, and has been relishing the chance to deliver a radical production car after being criticised for the ultra-conservative Q7, A4 and R8 designs.

The youth orientation of the Q2 has allowed Audi’s design team to wriggle free of the brand’s usual constraints and get creative. The Q2’s most distinctive feature will be an enormous chamfered cut along its waistline on both doors, a cabin that stretches forward and large rear shoulders.

It has also taken lessons from Audi’s A1 program (and, it must be said, the industry’s aftermarket leader, MINI) in offering design options for everything from the car’s interior pieces to its roof colour and even a choice of aluminium or carbon-fibre trim for the D-pillar.

Original design prototypes carried an egg-crate pattern inside Audi’s traditional single-frame grille, rather than Audi’s traditional horizontal bars, though sources suggest the creeping hand of conservatism on the decision-making levers may have seen its face revert to type.

The Q2 will be positioned below the Q3/X1/GLA fight, which means it won’t necessarily become a technical leader for the brand, but will carry over a lot of existing A3 mechanical and technical components, though it will take a step forward in connectivity.

Its interior will use splashes of colour unseen in recent mainstream Audis and will deliver more, and more eclectic, choices of interior trims and materials. There will be more hard surfacing than people are used to from Audi, but only because research suggests buyers in the new segment will be more demanding and less considerate about how they use their cars.

“We want to capture a particularly young clientele,” a senior Audi source confirmed.

“We tried to characterise it as an urban street feature, not just a car. It can let the customer build the character of their own cars.

“It’s very different from SUVs like the Q7. It’s a much bolder design and face and everything is strong and accentuated more than you would normally expect from us.”

While there are no plans for SQ2 or RSQ2 variants yet, both names have been registered by Audi. Instead, the mainstream versions will be powered by four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines and, though it seems inevitable, there is no talk of a hybrid powertrain yet.

That would give Audi the choice of delivering the 1.2-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine to power the entry-level front-drive Q2, with 81kW of power and 175Nm of torque.

The mainstay motor will be the cylinder-on-demand 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol four with either 92kW and 200Nm or the stronger unit with 110kW and 250Nm.

Audi will then have the option of using the 132kW/250Nm 1.8-litre petrol motor and/or the 164kW/350Nm 2.0-litre turbo engine. There’s also the S3 hatch’s 2.0-litre, 221kW/380Nm engine on offer and, given it’s using MQB, the RS3’s 2.5-litre turbocharged five-cylinder motor, with 270kW and 465Nm, will also fit, though it may not fit the buyer profile.

The 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel is a definite starter, and delivers 81kW of power and 250Nm in A3 form. There are two variants of the 2.0-litre TDI also ready to bolt into the Q2, one with 110kW and 340Nm of torque and one with 135kW and 380Nm.

The Q2 will sit above upcoming small SUVs from inside the Volkswagen Group, like the Volkswagen Cross up! and the uniquely-bodied, Polo-based T-Cross, which will also make its debut in Geneva. Audi plans to eventually swing a Q1 into play off the engineering platform of the T-Cross, but not before 2019.

Audi Q4 and TT SUV to come
If the Q2 is a priority for Audi, where are the rest of the missing Q cars? Well, the Q4 is an obvious target, and is slated to be a coupe-style SUV built off the Q3’s architecture, but it’s not a confirmed project within Audi.

Neither is the Q6 and despite talk of the badge being held in reserve for the right-sized, right-priced production version of the e-tron quattro concept, Audi insiders insist it isn’t inevitable. They’d prefer to send the all-electric Audi down its own naming path by calling it e-tron 6 (that’s a work-in-progress name, though), much like they did with the TT.

Speaking of which, the grand plans of retired development boss Ulrich Hackenberg for a family of TT models within the Audi brand are also on hold.

Audi has shown three concept cars that could conceivably become the third TT variant. The TT Sportback, a sleek four-door sedan, was the favourite of the designers and engineers, but not the commercial people, who saw more volume from the TT Offroad concept.

The other option was a development of the Audi Allroad Shooting Brake concept as a three-door TT SUV.

The TT Offroad concept is still the one being most aggressively pursued inside Audi, but the five-door SUV is also not yet a confirmed program, meaning it could not possibly be in showrooms before 2019 at the earliest.

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Written byMichael Taylor
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