What's this then?
Ah, we had heard the rumours that this was coming to Paris. It's the Audi TT Sportback, a five-door 'coupé' hatch that takes a stretched TT coupé and uses it to extend the TT badge into its own fully fledged range.
Seriously? Audi's made yet another four-door saloon?
Well, kind of. Quite how it will sit in the range next to the likes of the A3 Saloon, A4 Saloon, and A5 Sportback is not quite clear yet, but the wider point is that, without an expansion of the model range, the TT is dead - its sales have tailed off quite dramatically since its heyday in the late nineties and with buyers deserting coupés in favour of more practical SUVs and estates, this is a way to make the TT more relevant.
"In our TT Sportback we are revealing a new member of a potential TT family," said Audi research and development boss Ulrich Hackenberg.
So, the TT Sportback gets a massive, six-corner grille, laser headlights, 21-inch wheels, four frameless doors and it's a whopping 94mm wider than the A3 Saloon. It gets four individual seats as well.
More significantly, it is powered by a whopping 400hp 2.0-litre turbo engine, pinched from the Golf R, which gives it 50hp more than its potential greatest rival, the Mercedes CLA 45 AMG. Potential? Well, yes, this is strictly speaking still a concept, but if this doesn't morph into a full production model, and pretty quickly, we'll eat our four-ringed hats.
So it won't be hanging around then?
Oh no. And it'll be quick too. Apparently, Audi's performance computer simulator reckons it'll break the four-second barrier to 62mph...
Neil Briscoe - 2 Oct 2014