Marc Lichte, Head of design at Audi, says the e-tron GT is the most beautiful car he has ever designed and few will disagree with him. The German-born designer has been Head of Design at Audi since 2014 and has produced some beautiful cars.
Last week was mid-term in Ireland and I was amazed at the number of male teenagers and indeed some older men also, who simply stopped in their tracks to look at the car. As I drove through one housing estate the young lads who were walking along the footpath, stopped and applauded the car. Definitely the first time that ever happened to me and I have been lucky enough to drive some nice cars over the years.
I hope my photographs do the car justice because it’s gorgeous, but with a very hefty price, before you add in the extras. The colour was Tango Red and it certainly was a colour that did justice to the design and when you add in the sun roof and 21-inch trapezoidal design wheels you get a really classy look.
At first glance you might think the car had been in a crash as the vents in the bumper stood out and they were the first items to catch my attention. The vents allow the air to pass over the wheels to create an air dam to reduce the resistance the wheel causes and so improves the CD or drag coefficient of the car. A bit technical I know, but there is always an explanation when it comes to motors.
I have often said on these pages that colour means so much when buying a new car. I think red or black would have been the two best colours for the e-tron and my vote would go to red.
This car weighs over two tonnes but with 470 brake horse power you certainly won’t be left behind at the traffic lights and you should be able to get from zero to 100km in just over four seconds.
The official range with a full charge is 492km, but much depends on your own driving and weather conditions. The battery is 93.4kWh and this was the first time I saw two charge points in an electric car, one on each front bumper. However, you cannot use both together for a rapid charge, they are for different types of chargers.
The car is set very low and you need to mind your head when getting in. With that coupe style I was surprised that it was a four-door and if you have tall back-seat passengers they would need to be careful.
It’s a top of the range performance car and a very smooth car to drive and travel in, but give me a petrol or diesel car any day where there is no range anxiety. If you take a test drive in the red version of the e-tron GT you are certain to get a lot of attention from other motorists and pedestrians.
We will probably need to see a return of the Celtic Tiger to find more customers for the electric e-tron. The starting price is €108,265 and when the extras and that classy red paint the price of the car as tested came to €120,193.
A few people said to me last week that you could probably still buy a house in parts of rural Ireland for that kind of money; true, but the e-tron would certainly impress the neighbours no matter where you live.
