The Audi RS6 GTO Concept Is Doing A Very Good Quattro IMSA Impression

You know how Skoda tasks its students with creating weird and wonderful projects in the name of automotive education? The car you’re looking at here was created via a similar endeavour over at fellow VW Group Brand Audi, and the results are very agreeable indeed.

Dubbed the RS6 GTO, the apprentice-built wagon takes inspiration from Audi’s short-lived 90 Quattro IMSA-GTO racer. It goes beyond merely referencing the livery, though.

To go with the classic quattro GmbH colours, it has widened wheel arches, bonnet vents, a prominent rear wing and some fantastic-looking white, centre-lock aero wheels. Just in front of the rear-most shoes are side-exit exhaust pipes.

The interior has been altered primarily through lobbing most of it in the bin. The standard steering wheel and dashboard have been retained, though, providing amusing contrast with the roll cage and Recaro Podium seats. There’s also some netting on the driver’s side plus harnesses for both drivers.

There’s a lack of technical information kicking around for the RS6 GTO, so we’re left to assume that the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 has been left as standard. Fine by us - 592bhp is plenty of power, and with the new exhaust and stripped interior, this thing is going to sound mega.

The car it honours had the square route of naff-all linking it with the road-going 90. It was built around a tubular space frame, with a race-spec version of Audi’s 2.2-litre inline-five turbo kicking out over 700bhp. It proved immensely competitive in the 1989 IMSA season, picking up multiple wins, mostly via Hans Stuck with one from Walter Rohrl.

Sadly, Audi pulled the plug on the programme after that one season, wishing to focus its motorsport efforts closer to home in the DTM series. It remains a legend, however, with multiple modern Audi Sport products specifically referencing the wide-arched racer’s appearance.