Audio Audi

The Audi TT coupe, which goes on sale in New Zealand next month, was literally designed to music, writes Alastair Sloane.

It is a curious mix, the three-door Audi TT coupe. It sits on the same platform as the New Beetle, was named after the 1905 Tourist Trophy, the legendary car and motorcycle race on the Isle of Man, and its designers listened to the music of Miles Davis, Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix to get their creative juices flowing.

Audi wanted it that way. The Audi TT first appeared as a concept car at the Geneva motor show in 1995.

Since then its exterior especially has caught the imagination, often described as a typical Bauhaus design - purity and simplicity using the best technology - after the German movement founded in the 1920s by architect Walter Gropius.

But Audi believed the Bauhaus school of thought was too rigid, too emotionless. So it dialled in a Davis trumpet solo, Zappa's We're Only In It For The Money and Hendrix's Purple Haze and told its designers to tune in and change it.

They did, including making the side windows longer and doing away with engine vents.

Audi's chief designer, Romulus Rost, swayed to the beat, adding aluminium here and there, a circular theme to the instruments and fitting a metal cover over the radio.

He wanted an exterior and interior with emotion, one that evoked a mix of sight, sound, power and precision, like Hendrix on a good day on guitar. Rost was inspired - he now says Hendrix is the musical godfather of the TT.

The front-drive variant will go on sale in New Zealand next month at $77,900. The more expensive and more powerful Quattro all-wheel-drive arrives later in the year. More than 30 cars have already been pre-sold.

The TT is built on the same platform as the New Beetle, Audi A3, VW Golf, the five-door VW Bora and a Skoda which is unlikely to go on sale here. This sharing of platforms, economies of scale, has made VW-Audi cash rich.

The coupe is powered by an engine which is also used in other VW-Audi cars. It is a four-cylinder, 1.8-litre turbocharged unit, producing 132kW of power and 235Nm of torque between 1950 rpm and 4700 rpm, and mated to a five-speed manual transmission.

Safety equipment includes side-intrusion bars, antilock ABS brakes, traction control, dual front airbags and side and head airbags. The bodyshell comes with a 10-year anti-corrosion warranty.

Like many coupes, the rear seating is suitable only for children, in the TT's case up to 12 years of age, says Audi. But the rear seats fold flat to provide a handy load area.

Audi reached back in time to name the coupe. The history of the Tourist Trophy began at the start of the century when Gordon Bennett, heir to a New York newspaper empire, donated a trophy to compare the performance of American and European cars.

The first Gordon Bennett race was held in 1900, on a 570km course from Paris to Lyon in France. In 1902 the race was run from Paris to Innsbruck in Austria, and in 1903 it moved to Ireland.

It was planned to hold the 1904 event in England, but the ban on road races had not yet been lifted, and so the Automobile Club of Great Britain decided to switch the venue to the Isle of Man. The Gordon Bennett race took place there for the first time on May 10, 1904.

A year later, in 1905, the first two Tourist Trophy races were held, one in May for motorcycles and one in September for cars. The only cars permitted to take part at first were tourers, with no limit on engine size or power output.

The Tourist Trophy remained on the Isle of Man until 1922, after which events were held on other circuits.

Audi's link with the Tourist Trophy goes back to 1911, when an NSU team contested motorcycle events.

In 1967, to commemorate its association, a sports version of the NSU Prinz compact car was built and named the TT. It had a 1.0-litre engine producing 63kW and that year won the Tour de Europe, at the time the world's longest rally.

Audi reckons the latest TT embodies all that is good about the past and present.