The Audi Le Mans quattro is a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...

, developed by German automobile manufacturer

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. Th ...

, for presentation at the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show, to celebrate Audi's three successive wins at the arduous

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...

endurance race in 2000, 2001, and 2002. It was the third and final

in 2003, following the Pikes Peak quattro and the Nuvolari quattro. - Audi's subsidiary

quattro GmbH Audi Sport GmbH, formerly known as quattro GmbH,Audi-Mediacente ...

subsequently decided to produce the Audi Le Mans Quattro as a production road car, calling it the R8, naming it after their very successful R8 LMP race car, which won the

five times.

Design and technical

The Audi Le Mans quattro has a number of high-technology features, including the

headlights A headlamp is a lamp attached to the front of a vehicle to illuminate the road ahead. Headlamps are also often called headlights, but in the most precise usage, ''headlamp'' is the term for the device itself and ''headlight'' is the term for ...

composed entirely of

light-emitting diodes A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...

(LEDs). The structural framework of the body, the Audi Space Frame, shared with the

Lamborghini Gallardo The Lamborghini Gallardo (; ) is a sports car built by the Italian automotive manufacturer Lamborghini from 2003 to 2013. It is Lamborghini's second car released under parent company Audi, and best-selling model with 14,022 built throughout its ...

, is made entirely of

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

, while the outer skin is made out of

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

and aluminium. The car also features an electronically controlled rear

spoiler Spoiler is a security vulnerability on modern computer central processing units that use speculative execution. It exploits side-effects of speculative execution to improve the efficiency of Rowhammer and other related memory and cache attacks. Ac ...

that raises at . The Le Mans quattro featured the magnetic ride magneto rheological dampers, also installed in the latest TT, which gives the car a firmer and more responsive drive and improved handling characteristics. In Audi tradition, the car features quattro permanent

four-wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer cas ...

to optimise traction and handling. The Le Mans quattro's engine was a development of the Gallardo's, with the same displacement but using different cylinder heads and

twin-turbo Twin-turbo (not to be confused with a twincharger setup, which is a combination of a supercharger and a turbocharger) refers to an engine in which two turbochargers work in tandem to compress the intake fuel/air mixture (or intake air, in the case ...

chargers and

Fuel Stratified Injection Gasoline direct injection (GDI), also known as petrol direct injection (PDI), is a mixture formation system for internal combustion engines that run on gasoline (petrol), where fuel is injected into the combustion chamber. This is distinct fro ...

technology, resulting in the high output of , and of torque. The transmission is the six-speed automated manual transmission that was also shared with the Gallardo and developed by

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...

The car showcased various Audi styling cues and technological details, planned to be used in future production Audi models.

Specifications and performance

*Power: *Torque: *Engine: 5.0 L DOHC twin-turbocharged TFSI V10 *0–100 km/h: 3.7 seconds *Top speed:

In popular culture

The Le Mans quattro is featured prominently in the 2006 arcade racing video game '' Need For Speed: Carbon'' as the car of the game's antagonist Darius (

Tahmoh Penikett Tahmoh Penikett (; ; born May 20, 1975) is a Canadian actor. He is known for playing Karl "Helo" Agathon on SyFy's 2004 television series ''Battlestar Galactica''. He has appeared in TV series ''Supernatural'', '' Dollhouse'', the Showcase time ...

References

External links

Audi corporate website
* -
Picture gallery at worldcarfans
{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Mans Quattro Audi concept vehicles

Design and technical

Specifications and performance

In popular culture

See also

References

External links