The 2015 Audi TT already sits on a versatile platform, if you consider how many cars it shares underpinnings with. But if some thinly veiled words slipping out of an Audi exec's mouth are true, then pretty soon we could be blessed with a whole lot more kinds of TT. Including (*GASP*) a shooting brake.
Now, granted, let's not get ahead of ourselves. The Audi board member responsible for development, Ulrich Hackenburg, who has a supremely German name, seriously, just say it out loud a few times, told a bunch of Australian autojournos at the Geneva Auto show that Audi was looking to expand the TT into a sub brand in its own right. From GoAuto.com.au (bolding mine):
... the company was considering ways to capitalise on the TT's strong "brand" and iconic status, and would have news in "a little bit".
Audi premiered the third-generation TT coupe at the Swiss expo, with an evolutionary exterior treatment that harks back to the original model, and a retro yet modern cabin that emphasises simple controls.
"I think the Allroad concept from Detroit has (had) very good feedback," said Dr Hackenberg. "We are looking intensively, what does such a car mean for TT?
"We have an RS, we have a TT-S (both high-performance versions of the coupe), we have the roadster and normal coupe, so why not more?
The "Allroad concept from Detroit" that Dr. Hackenburg was talking about was this, the Audi Allroad Shooting Brake Concept:
If you're thinking that looks remarkably like a little wagon version of the Audi TT, that's because that's pretty much what it is. Yes, it's also been lifted a bit, but it's not much of a stretch to see it as just a regular Audi TT Shooting Brake.
Concepts are often thrown out as silly design exercises by automakers, and a lot of the time they deserve to be treated as such. The Allroad concept, though, looked unusually production-ready as such things go. Even the tires look fairly standard.
And with the comments coming from an Audi board member, it looks like the dream of an Audi Ttrssb (that's an Audi TT-RS Shooting Brake, but I prefer the initials pronounced all as one word) might be, maybe, potentially, hopefully, one step closer to reality.
Maybe.
Just remember, that Audi has a fine set of accountants working for it, all of whom want to see such a thing make money before it's greenlit for production. So we'll see what happens. The last little German shooting brake was the Z3 Coupe, and that looked a bit like a shoe and it didn't sell very well in comparison to its convertible sibling. So Audi will probably look to that as a marker for how well its own shooting brake would do.
But that was a long time ago, and the world was ever so slightly different back then. So don't rule it out.
Or at least, keep praying. It might just be working.
Via Motor Authority