I've had this idea in my head for a little while - hypothesising what would have happened to Audi's rally trajectory if Group B hadn't ended so abruptly. Porsche won the Dakkar in '86 with the 959 - and VW campaigned a heavily modified Touareg in 2003. I wanted to imagine what a fully weaponised Audi equivalent should look like - inspired by Design cues from the Group B Quattros I grew up idolising.
Evolution of Alias geometry from initial loose sketches. This is how I tend to "work" when developing these purely concept projects for fun in my spare time . . I'll get a vehicle concept in my mind, and thrash out the basic proportions as a series of fag-packet doodles. Then I'll use Alias 3D CAD to develop and iterate the volumes until I'm happy with the overall character. Once frozen, then it's time to work up the physical details. Final step is cutting in the livery and geting into renders. With this project I pulled preliminary geometry into vRED early in the development process - to get a feel for how the Design was panning out. It's useful to see the same data presented in a different media, as it allows you to assess it with fresh eyes & spot additional things to tweak.
Stance - it's definitely got plenty of air in the arches! Theres a lot of UR Quattro in this side view - and I couldn't resist getting some IMSA inspired Turbofan wheelcovers in there for good measure. My original intention was to do a pure white, grey and red traditional AudiSport livery - but during development I found the addition of the S1 style yellow livery accents helped accentuate the shoulder line.
From the front, there's definitely more of the Touareg Dakkar "dune buggy" aesthetic. I originally toyed with developing a more modern, integrated headlight can - but as I got further into the design I felt that keeping things simple, robust and quickly replaceable would be more in keeping with the brief.
With punctures and buckled rims an occupational hazzard on the Dakkar, I figured it'd make sense to double-up on spares.There's details of the rear bodywork (with the implications of it being a large, hinged clamshell that remind me of the Lancia S4 integrale - no bad thing!
. . . . Hmmm . . . . I might have to save up and get a 3D printed model for my desktop. Not a bad result for a hobby project fitted in after hours over the past few weeks. For sure, there'd need to be lots and LOTS of detail refinement and rework if the design was to progress further - but for now it'll do.
Think it's probably time to put my race overalls on and pack my bucket and spade - it's time to hit the Dakkar.
I've always been a sucker for a good set of reference vehicle elevations when I'm developing a new concept - it's always useful to be able to compare sizes and proportions versus existing proven vehicles. If anyone fancies having a go modelling their own Dakkar racer, feel free to use this as a startpoint. Cheers!. M
