How big is it? Imagine a really sexy A8, minus two doors—the Prologue is essentially as wide and long as the sedan, but the roofline is much lower than the A8's formal limousine profile. If you're rooting for this to get greelit for production, join the club. The concept car's power comes from a monster version of Audi's 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8, whose wick is dialed up to 605 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque (553 lb-ft with overboost), channeled through an 8-speed auto to all four wheels via quattro. Audi saus 0–60 takes just 3.7 ticks. All-wheel sterering is part of the package, as are giant carbon-ceramic brakes behind the 22-inch wheels—the front rotors are 20 inches in diameter and squeezed by six-piston calipers. The whole car weighs in at 4365 pounds.
There's no mistaking this for an Audi, mind you, but the changes pull the design language forward. The shield grille is shorter, wider and mounted lower, making the front end look immediately sportier. The Eurofighter-style winglets under the air intakes are a nice touch. Move to the car's rear and gaze at the 3/4 view, and longtime Audi aficionados will see an nod to the beloved urQuattro in the form of a soft interpretation of that car's signature box-flared haunches. Up front, Audi's matrixed laser headlamps cut through the darkness,
Inside, we get a high-tech instrument panel that offers the necessary concept-car glitz, yet also reeks of feasibility. The Audi Virtual Cockpit, debuting in the new TT, is obviously in place, but in lieu of physical controls, well, anywhere, the car is loaded with high-resolution, touch-sensitive displays on the dash face itself. The areas on either side of the wheel let the driver control the essentials like lighting and media. The area in front of the passenger seat also lets that person control entertainment features and perform tasks like entering navigation info, which can then be swiped, tablet style, to the driver.
In lieu of the usual centrally mounted MMI screen, an OLED touch-sensitive panel lives in the transmission tunnel. When not in use, Audi says it's essentially invisible. Some of the aforementioned gee-whiz stuff may sound somewhat familiar, because BMW took a similar approach with the cabin of its Future Luxury concept last year. Clearly, this is the direction in which the luxury automakers are headed.
If this is how Audi sends us into its take on our luxury-car future, well, all the better.
