- This primary-gen Audi TT has arguably the purest execution of the model’s Bauhaus design.
- Though primarily based on VW Golf underpinnings, the top-spec model featured a turbocharged 225-hp engine, all-wheel drive, and an accessible six-speed guide transmission, all current right here.
- This instance additionally boasts ultra-low mileage with the odometer displaying simply 15K miles. The public sale ends on Thursday, July 6.
Launched within the fall of 1998, the Audi TT is now a quarter-century outdated, which naturally begs the query: Is that this a possible future basic? Underpinned by the identical platform because the fourth-generation VW Golf, the TT was sensible, fast, succesful, and oh, so fairly. This ultra-low-mileage instance of the first-gen TT Roadster, full with a guide transmission and people standout baseball-stitch seats, is up for public sale on Convey a Trailer, which like Automobile and Driver is a part of Hearst Autos.
The TT takes its title from bike racing on the Isle of Man. NSU was a automotive and bike producer that was absorbed by Auto Union in 1969 to kind the trendy embodiment of Audi, and it was fairly profitable in bike racing on the Snaefell circuit. Additional, the NSU TT was a small, extremely tuned rear-engined coupe that could be regarded as analogous to any variety of Fiat Abarth specials.
Within the mid-Nineties, Audi was trying to infuse its lineup with extra emotional attraction. The A4 and A6 had established themselves as credible rivals to BMW’s 3- and 5-series and the Mercedes-Benz C- and E-class. However Audi wanted a sports activities automotive.
Enter the TT, first sketched out as a coupe idea in 1995. Manufacturing started in 1998, with the roadster becoming a member of the lineup a yr later. A yr after that, a stronger 225-hp model of the turbocharged 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine went on sale, and the TT made Automobile and Driver‘s 10Best checklist.
“We predict this splendidly glamorous Audi will finally be part of the Cisitalia and Jaguar E-type within the Museum of Trendy Artwork. For now, we merely grin each time we see one,” we wrote.
This instance is the stronger 225-hp variant, with Quattro all-wheel-drive and the six-speed guide transmission. Completed in black over Amber Pink upholstery, it additionally has the must-have baseball-stitch leather-based, such as you’re sitting in Paul Bunyan’s game-day mitt. With simply 15,000 miles on the odometer and a clear California historical past, it is a beautiful piece of contemporary Bauhaus design.
Simply because it did on its debut, immediately the TT marks a excessive level for Audi lovers. And, sadly, additionally a bookend. The present TT is leaving the market as Audi pivots to electrification. There could also be an all-electric successor to the R8, however there look like plans for the TT to go EV.
Which is a disgrace. The TT was Audi’s Everyman sports activities automotive—attention-grabbing, stunning, and inside attain. A box-fresh classic model like this instance nonetheless has these qualities. This public sale ends July 6.
Contributing Editor
Brendan McAleer is a contract author and photographer primarily based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British cars, got here of age within the golden period of Japanese sport-compact efficiency, and started writing about automobiles and other people in 2008. His specific curiosity is the intersection between humanity and equipment, whether or not it’s the racing profession of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught each of his younger daughters shift a guide transmission and is grateful for the excuse they supply to be perpetually shopping for Scorching Wheels.
