Next time you make a big career move and have to start training, onboarding or whatever the technical term your future employer uses, ask yourself: Does my regimen include, in any form, assisting in the restoration and electrification of a half-century-old, rear-engine German coupe? If the answer is “no,” your job, despite whatever perks it may entail, is not as cool as that of an Audi apprentice.
Over the weekend, a group of 12 Audi trainees across various departments — automotive mechatronics, bodywork, vehicle construction mechanics and painting — unveiled a coupe called the EP4 that looks absolutely nothing like any product out of Ingolstadt in 50 years. That’s because it actually started life as an NSU Prinz 4L, a car that was produced at Audi’s Neckarsulm site back when Volkswagen folded NSU into its operations in 1969.
The original Prinz 4 moved thanks to an air-cooled, two-cylinder engine out back. Coupled with its design, many drew comparisons to the Corvair, only of course, the Prinz was on a much smaller scale. This engine provided about 30 horsepower, but Audi’s engineers swapped it out for a 240-hp motor pulled from an E-Tron, fed power from batteries out of a plug-in-hybrid Q7.
That battery is ahead of the occupants, and cooled with a wide front intake. The EP4 is certainly much sportier than your typical Prinz 4, though it’s not like NSU didn’t know how to build a race car in its day. To make this one, the Audi trainees cut up an A1 and fused many parts of its chassis with the existing floorplan. From the company’s press release:
The big leap in performance required extensive modifications to the chassis and the bodywork. A modified floor pan from an Audi A1, including brakes and axles, forms the base. The apprentices mounted the extensively modified and significantly widened body on top. The muscular fenders are unmistakably athletic. The apprentices designed these with the support of Audi Design and turned them into reality using 3D printing. Wide wheels are tucked beneath the fenders. Thanks to modern performance tires, they provide the necessary grip during acceleration and sporty cornering.
“The eye travels with you! We wanted the EP4’s performance to be visible from every angle,” explains Cynthia Huster, apprentice automotive painter. The rear wing, painted Signal Yellow, gives the EP4 a particularly sporty appearance. The twist: The wing is not attached to the bodywork, as in other vehicles, but to the roll cage. Its supports, therefore go through the rear window.
The wing is attached to the roll cage! There is absolute no reason for a car like this to go as hard as this, but it speaks to the dedication of the engineers. I reckon they’ll go far. Audi’s history and future wrapped up in one hurling three-box terror; there’s poetry in there, somewhere.