Atelier D2
Class without mass.
1981
Audi meets Alcoa
A secret pact in Pittsburgh. Aluminium in a load-bearing body was supposed to be impossible. They spent more than a hundred million dollars each proving otherwise.
ASF
Space Frame
334 parts, 47 extrusions, 50 cast nodes, 1 360 punch rivets. The finished body around 249 kg — about 40 percent lighter than steel, and stiffer.
1994
Geneva
The first modern Audi letter-number name. Chris Bird and Dirk van Braeckel’s quiet shape. Excellence without excess, elegance without arrogance.
Quattro IV
Torsen, always on
A Type I Torsen centre differential, nominally 50/50, able to send up to about 80 percent to the axle with grip. EDL brakes a spinning wheel. Tyres still decide a Swedish winter.
1998
Kanzlerwagen
Gerhard Schröder broke a 49-year Mercedes tradition and took an A8 as official car. The same silhouette later carried armour from Trasco in Bremen.
Ronin
The other legend
Frankenheimer asked for an S8. Dark, fast, discreet. The D2 became a film tool, a chancellor’s car, and — in other postcodes — a rumour.
Separate headlamps and indicators, bumper without fog lamps, no sunroof, Bose, electric rear blind, sports seats, walnut. The later D2 became faster and clearer in the glass; this one is the first idea — aluminium, quattro, and a face that prefers not to announce itself.
Showroom
The order sheet, made visible
Every switch, silence and PR code on CHS 275 was specified. Open an exhibit. Where a function can be felt, try it.
8BB · 8X1
The first face
Separate lamps, a washer, no xenon
Pre-facelift D2: main beam and indicator as neighbours, not a single glass. Halogen HB3, headlamp washers, levelling. The later car clarified the face; this one prefers a pair of quiet circles.
Specified absences
What Neckarsulm left out
The print is as clear about what is missing. No sunroof in the aluminium skin, no xenon, no map, no hitch. The first idea travels lighter.
3FA
Without sunroof
7Q0
Without navigation
1D0
Without tow bar
8BB
Halogen, not xenon
6N0
No factory mud flaps