Audi Pulls Out All The Stops With The Super-Sleek Nuvolari

With the R8 series coming to an end in 2024, after nearly 20 years of loyal service, Audi has lost its Top Dog, its Poster Boy sports car. The mid-engined two-seater R8 was a massive success, in sports and super-car terms at least, with nearly 45,000 units produced. Built on the Lamborghini Gallardo and later Húracan underpinnings, it delivered a seriously hefty punch thanks to potent V8 and V10 engines. After what is a welcomingly short hiatus, though, Audi has pulled the covers off its next performance machine, the Nuvolari. And being named after one of Auto Union’s most memorable and successful racing drivers, the anticipation is high!

Straight out of the gate, don’t expect the Nuvolari to simply be “the next R8”. This is a completely new car, even though in essence, it follows the same recipe of an all-wheel drive coupe with the engine mounted in the middle. Sure, if you try you will find similarities in its design, but underneath it’s a very different beast, and fortunately it packs a rather potent combustion engine! With a bit of hybrid assistance, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Tazio Nuvolari

The name Nuvolari is not new to Audi, or Auto Union rather, as it refers to Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari, an Italian racing driver with an impressive resume. During his nearly 30-year career, he won many races, including 60 Grands Prix and the 1932 European Championship, sort of the precursor to today’s Formula 1 Championship. Racing for the likes of Bugatti, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Auto Union, he was part of a prolific generation of racers, sharing the spotlight with Bernd Rosemeyer, Rudolf Caracciola, Hans Stuck, Hermann Lang, Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio.

Nuvolari, like his peers, raced pretty much anything, anytime, anywhere. He won the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio multiple times, and the 1933 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, to name just a few of his race victories. He walked away from competitive racing due to a split fuel tank incident during the 1938 Pau Grand Prix, stating the Alfa Romeo was just too dangerous and badly built. Taking a break from racing, he was contacted by Auto Union to compete in the 1938 Swiss Grand Prix. He raced for the team for three years, achieving three Grands Prix wins, cementing Auto Union as one of the best manufacturers of the pre-war era, but also himself as one of the best of his generation. In honour of his achievements, his name was given to the Audi Nuvolari Quattro concept car in 2003, and now the all-new limited production car.

Concept C Origins

Before I delve into the details on the Nuvolari, it’s worth going back to the Concept C, the design study Audi unveiled at the Munich Motor Show last year. It demonstrated a new design direction for Audi, which they dubbed “radical simplicity”, and it makes total sense looking at the car. The car was penned as the spiritual successor to the Audi TT, which somewhat can be considered the R8’s more accessible, less hardcore little brother, in spirit at least. The shape is more of a Grand Tourer than a (super) sportscar, and it had a cool folding-targa roof, with power coming from an EV drivetrain.

While the reaction to the Concept C was very positive, and people hoped Audi would develop it for production, it now seems they very much had other plans. Instead of fine-tuning the Concept C to hit the road as a 500-bhp EV coupe, it took the ‘radical simplicity’ design concept, adopted it to the Lamborghini Temerario platform, tweaked it a bit, and called it Nuvolari. And that car is entering production, thank heavens! But if this high-power supercar is a bit too much for your liking, performance-wise or financially speaking perhaps, the Concept Cs design language is said to be the future for Audi, so we can expect to see more of it, including a new TT.

2025 Audi Concept C

2025 Audi Concept C

Lambo tech, Audi styling

Now that some of the key puzzle pieces have been put in place, here’s the all-new Tazio Nuvolari, and it’s very intriguing to say the least! The styling is very ‘Audi’, but I personally had to digest the details a bit before making my judgement. Some cars instantly hit you, others take some time to grow on you, and some just leave you dead in the water (looking at you, Ferrari Luce!). Now that some time has passed, I can certainly see the appeal of this next-level Audi! And I am particularly happy they didn’t give it some boring letters-and-numbers name.

The Audi Nuvolari, as mentioned earlier, is built upon the platform of the Lamborghini Temerario. Of course, Lamborghini is part of the Volkswagen Audi Gruppe, and in fact the Audi ownership proved vital in sustaining, and probably saving, Lamborghini as a carmaker at some point. What’s important to note is that this is Audi’s first hybrid supercar, pairing a twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 engine with a three-motor hybrid system carried over from the Italian raging bull. But, interestingly enough, Audi has fiddled with both the combustion engine and the EV system, pushing the combined output to 1,001 horsepower over the already quite ludicrous 920bhp of the Temerario.

That means the Nuvolari’s top speed is said to be in excess of 350kph, with the zero-to-100kph sprint being done and dusted in 2.6 seconds, and for what it’s worth, passing the 200kph mark after just 6.8 seconds. To put it in some sort of perspective, the Nuvolari takes less time to hit double the speed of a lot of the road cars today. And of course, Audi being Audi after all, power is fed to the road through all four wheels, which are forged centre-locking ones by the way! It uses the latest Quattro tech, which continuously checks things like throttle input, steering lock, grip levels and so on, to provide a stable and sharp response under every circumstance. Sounds reassuring…

But coming back to the ‘radical simplicity’ style of the Nuvolari, it’s trademarked by a very sleek and straightforward design at first. Look a little closer though, and you’ll discover more and more details. The strong side-profile, for instance, has a fold running from the front to the back, splitting the car’s upper and lower halves. The contrasting side air intake is reminiscent of the blade on the side of the Audi R8s. The creases across the front section of the body give it a touch more character, a subtle element that I really like. Up front, the vertical grille is similar to the Concept C and inspired by the famous Auto Union Grand Prix cars. But where the Concept C showed more bodywork up front, over the engine and in the back, the Nuvolari has been opened up to breathe in and out a bit easier. And given its performance, that’s very much needed, I take it! The narrow head and taillights are also pretty epic, giving it a rather villainous stare. 

What strikes me even more though, is the lack of wild cuts and slashes, or humungous wings and splitters. It looks clean, purposeful and poised, with lots of clever underbody trickery to optimise the car’s aerodynamic efficiency. Fortunately, though, to add some drama in the end, it has an integrated moveable rear wing which comes up at speeds.

It’s evident the Nuvolari will also come with all the modern-day amenities you need, including switchable ride modes (E-Hybrid, Balanced, Dynamic, and Dynamic+), variable traction control settings and apparently a user interface that’s ‘fully focused on the act of driving’. Only 499 Nuvolari’s will be made, at a price that’s said to be close to EUR 600,000 excluding taxes and before options, if there are any. Oh, and it’s already hinted at by Audi’s CEO Gernot Döllner that we will very likely see a Nuvolari Roadster in the future.

For more information, please visit Audi.com.

Editorial Note: The information used, and images portrayed in this article are sourced from and used with permission of Audi AG and Audi MediaCenter, unless stated otherwise.