Audi TT

Audi Says it's TT Time

DETROIT - Like Cutty Sark and Cohiba, the 2000 Audi TT Coupe grows on you after initial disgust. When the concept car was introduced in 1995, we hated it. When Audi announced they would build the TT, we scoffed, calling it the automotive equivalent of Miss Piggy. Then we got up close and personal with the TT in Europe last year. Now we've visited with the TT in Detroit at the 1999 North American International Auto Show. You could say we've developed an acquired taste for the design.

Photographs cannot give the viewer proper appreciation for the TT's impeccable balance. In person, the car just looks right. It's aggressive and graceful at the same time. The rear is particularly pleasing with rounded flanks and a cleanly arced roofline. Purposeful styling details are executed with ice-cold precision. This isn't a warm fuzzy kind of automobile. It is, however, an instant classic - a shape that will be a topic of discussion for years.

Audi calls the TT an authentic German sports car. We disagree, but only because the initial TT offering has a front-engine, front-drive powertrain layout. A turbocharged, 1.8-liter, four-cylinder engine makes 180 horsepower and is connected to a five-speed manual transmission. Zero to 60 is achieved in 7.4 seconds. Specs such as these read more like an Acura Integra than a BMW Z3 2.8 Coupe. Fortunately, more power and an all-wheel drive system, as well as a roadster bodystyle, are on the way after launch.

Like the Acura Integra, the TT is a hatchback with a sparsely decorated interior and a nearly useless rear seat. However, where the Acura uses plastic and cloth, Audi has created, as they describe it, "a visual and tactile feast" of aluminum, leather and stainless steel. The effect is successful, appearing to be expensively outfitted but not luxurious in the traditional sense of the word. And, thanks to the hatchback design, the TT offers owners some utility. It carries 13.8 cubic feet of cargo; 24.2 if the rear seat is folded down.

Head and thorax side airbags are standard, as is traction control on the front-wheel-drive model. Pre-tensioners and force limiters make seatbelts even more effective than conventional systems and next generation front airbags deploy at lower speeds. Tubular door post cross bracing strengthens TT in side impacts.

Pricing was not announced in Detroit, but if the Neiman-Marcus catalog car's asking price of nearly $35,000 can be used as a gauge, expect to pay about $32,500 to play with one of Audi's TTs.