Someone's (Sort Of) Resurrecting The Audi Sport Quattro As An 800bhp EV
Remember the 2010 Audi quattro concept? It was a modern interpretation of the legendary Sport Quattro, based on an RS5 but with the 4.2-litre nat-asp V8 switched for a 400bhp inline-five hooked up to the S4’s six-speed manual. Oh, and it looked incredible.
Audi was serious about making it a limited-run production reality, but that plans were canned. Fast forward over 10 years, and a company called E-Legend appears to be making up for this disappointment by building its own contemporary interpretation of the legendary homologation special.
It’s called the EL-1, and it’s aesthetic far closer to the original Sport Quattro than Audi’s 2010 concept. Really close, actually, to the point where we’re wondering what Audi’s legal team makes of all this. It has a similar albeit slightly more squat silhouette, the same level of outlandishness to the arch flares, and even the classic bonnet vents Audi has resurrected on modern products like the R8. All the edges are softer, though, and the lighting is all bang-up-to-date - think big LED light bars and snazzy DRL signatures.
Where it gets very different is under the skin. Rather than use a warbly, turbocharged five-pot, the EL-1 gets a triple-motor electric powertrain. The setup features one motor for the front axle and two at the rear, with the whole shebang juiced by a 90kWh battery pack. German publication Auto Motor und Sport seems fairly sure the battery modules are the same ones used in the Porsche Taycan.
The total system power is a punchy 793bhp, offsetting the bulk of that big battery pack to give a 0-62mph time of just 2.8 seconds. It has a range of up to 248 miles, and if driven flat out at the Nurburgring Nordschleife, it’ll last for two laps (around 26 miles).
The weight figure isn’t too bad for a powerful EV, with a carbon fibre monocoque and carbon-fibre reinforced plastic body panels yielding a 1680kg figure. In terms of dynamics, we know the EL-1 has a set of three-way adjustable dampers, and, erm, that’s about it.
E-Legend wants to make 30 EL-1s, charging around £1 million a pop. If the Audi isn’t quite your bag, an ‘EL-2’ and ‘EL-3’ are in the works, one of which is expected to be a reimagined Lancia Stratos.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Seems to me that they’ve ruined it by getting rid of that Inline 5