Opinion: it has monumental presence, but is the market ready for Audi's £500k Nuvolari?

Audi CEO Gernot Döllner had a 23-year career at Porsche before returning to the mothership and then taking the reins at Audi. One of the projects he ran at Weissach was the 918 Spyder, a concept version of which appeared at the Geneva show in 2010. That was cooked up in almost total secrecy by a skunkworks of engineers and designers, and it was only on the morning of the first press day that word slipped out that Porsche was about to wrong-foot us all.

These days, it’s almost impossible to keep the lid on anything. The internet is rapacious, nothing is sacred. But Audi managed it with its Nuvolari, the fastest, most powerful production car the company has ever made, and one with a punchy price tag: it’ll cost north of half a million quid. Actually, I got wind of it a few months ago, but nothing more was said or confirmed, and even the invitation to yesterday’s preview event gave little away.

Audi resurrected the name Nuvolari, last used on a 2003 concept car, in honour of the famously fearless pre- and post-war Italian racing driver, Tazio Nuvolari, Enzo Ferrari’s all-time favourite competitor. The so-called ‘Flying Mantuan’ raced the fearsome Auto Union C and D in the late Thirties, hence the connection. So what if he was more of an Alfa Romeo man?

Nuvolari wore a yellow jersey, but the car arrives painted in Audi’s new signature Titanium paint, as previously seen on the smaller Concept C and also used by the company’s Formula One cars. It’s a technical but not unemotional hue, and certainly looks good on the F1 machinery. Audi was clearly going to leverage its presence in the sport – tech transfer and marketing are two of the biggest reasons for doing it – but did anyone expect it to happen this fast?

And that’s another critical factor. There’s no time to waste, and Audi’s top brass are acutely aware of it. “We started with a really small group of people and approved the idea,” Döllner told me. “Then we got the designers, engineers and aerodynamics experts together physically in the same room. Still maybe only 10 in number. The design ideation was done in a matter of weeks, and was so promising we were able to sign it off in June last year. The most important part is the speed of the people.”

Döllner is personable and open, but also a man determined to move fast and unafraid of breaking a few things along the way (to paraphrase a famous Silicon Valley trope). The supercar idea was first floated in March last year, the design nailed by four designers in about three months – in parallel with the Concept C – and now here’s the finished thing, just 440 days later. That’s unprecedented for a finished production car. It took Porsche four years to realise the 918 Spyder.

Of course, the Nuvolari wouldn’t exist at all, and certainly not this quickly, if it wasn’t borrowing extensively from elsewhere in the Group, specifically the Lamborghini Temerario. Audi’s chief technical officer, the brilliant Rouven Mohr, returned to Ingolstadt earlier this year after a stint in Sant’Agata, so he knows the hard- and software inside out. Interestingly, he’s focused on enhancing the Nuvolari’s driveability, so while it revs to 10,000 rpm, like its Italian cousin, it’ll have a meatier mid-range. The rest of its tech spec is mouthwatering, but expect further Audi-fication without any dilution in terms of entertainment.

The other Italian connection comes courtesy of Audi’s chief creative officer, Massimo Frascella. He hails from Tuscany, but was Gerry McGovern’s number two for many years at JLR. The current Range Rover is a masterpiece of modernism, its sheer, monolithic surfaces giving it an unrivalled imperiousness on the move. That’s clearly Frascella’s thing, for the Nuvolari is all reduced essence and shuns unnecessary decoration.

In the flesh, it has monumental presence; in fact, it’s almost as much an actual monument as it is car, like the Brandenburg Gate. Bauhaus and Dieter Rams are influences here, although the control in the surface aft of the B-pillars and across the rear shoulders is palpable. Those vertical side intakes are there to channel air, but also manage an interesting step change in the silhouette and cleverly conceal the door release mechanism.

Temerario-related it may be, but the Nuvolari reminds me more of the Murciélago, which in turn took inspo from the Countach. So there is some real visual energy here, although it’s another new car that’s hellishly difficult to photograph. Light doesn’t play off it like it would on a more sensual shape, because the decorative elements have been eliminated. But that doesn’t mean it lacks drama.

As we know, only 499 are being made. Is the market ready for a £500k Audi? Even Gernot Döllner isn’t absolutely certain about that. But he didn’t wait for the accountants to shoot it down, and we should all give thanks for that.