(Motorsport-Total.com/Motor1) – The ongoing successes of the Mercedes G-Class and Land Rover Defender show: rugged off-roaders, luxuriously packaged, work perfectly. On top of that, they generate significant margins because the price tag is obviously not that important to customers in this segment. Audi has also noticed this by now and wants to play in this hot market.
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The boss himself, Gernot Döllner, said just at the end of May at a journalist roundtable that they want to get involved in the off-road topic. A robust SUV is something they are considering in Ingolstadt. The nice thing is: these concepts work just as well in Europe as in the USA or the Middle East.
And what could such a robust premium off-road beast with four rings look like? Our pixel artists got to work and designed an off-road Audi in the style of a G-Class competitor. All this with the new Audi design language in mind, which was presented to us with the Concept C and most recently with the supercar Nuvolari.
More verticality in the new Audi design – but robust
Audi’s declared goal would be to preserve the visual brand identity but interpret it much more extremely. Therefore, a very upright front with narrow headlights, strongly pronounced wheel arches, metal underbody protection, specific bumpers with favorable approach angles, and greater ground clearance than the current SUVs of the brand are expected. This would pave the way for the new design direction – here developed even more strongly in the vertical.
It would of course look threatening, such an off-road beast with a large black aluminum grille and monstrous air intakes on the sides. Especially in combination with very narrow, horizontally designed lights. If the model goes into series production, it could clearly differentiate itself from the Q6, Q7, and Q8 and visually be closer to classic 4x4s than to road-oriented crossovers.
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Speculations about platform and powertrains
Audi has not yet disclosed any technical details, but several rumors suggest that the new off-roader could leverage synergies within the Volkswagen Group. One option would be the use of a ladder frame architecture developed for the resurrection of the Scout brand in the USA – a solution that would enable a true 4×4 without having to start completely from scratch.
Technically, it would therefore likely be a further development of the Scout Traveler, which is planned both as a fully electric variant and with a range extender. For now, however, Audi only confirms that the project is being examined and a decision will be made only after careful evaluation of the commercial potential. Accordingly, we will probably have to wait until 2027 or even 2028 to learn more about this maxi off-road SUV.
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