Hints of things to come

Audi unveiled the sport-utility concept at the Detroit motor show.

German carmaker Audi says the sport-utility concept it unveiled at the Detroit motor show hints at how the Allroad quattro might evolve.

That's the official line. Unofficially, what you see is pretty much what you will get when the next-generation Allroad station wagon is launched, perhaps in 2007.

The show car is the first indication that Audi will continue with the Allroad, a model line whose future appeared cloudy when Audi confirmed it would build the Q7, a Volkswagen Touareg-sized off-roader.

The concept was built to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the four-wheel-drive quattro system, technology forever etched in high-tech history through the success of Audi rally cars in the early 1980s.

More than 1.8 million Audi quattro models have been built since the first in 1980.

The Allroad concept is based on the new A6 Avant, which arrives in New Zealand later this year.

But it has a 60mm increase in body height, new bumpers, flared wheel arches housing 19-inch rubber, ribbed stainless steel under-body protection and special treatment for the single-frame grille.

LED front and rear lights also add to the visual appeal.

Adaptive air suspension borrowed from the current A8 saloon adjusts ground clearance from a 160mm setting at motoring cruising speeds to 210mm for rougher going, and a new 4-litre, twin-turbocharged V8 diesel engine - the world's lightest diesel V8, says Audi - provides the oomph.

Some oomph it is, too. Audi says the engine produces 213kW (286bhp) and a whopping 650Nm of torque, driving all four wheels through a six-speed automatic. The concept sprints from zero to 100km/h in a claimed 6.4 secs and on to an electronically governed 250 km/h (155mph). It covers the ground between 80-110km/h in a Porsche-like 4.9 sec.

It is the first V8 Audi diesel engine to feature common-rail injection with rapid-response Piezo injectors. Piezo is an American electronics company which uses crystals for high-speed fuel injection.