Driving the Audi Prologue, the ghost car of Audi's future

Named to introduce various styling and interior elements that will soon make it onto production Audi models, the Prologue concept unveiled last week at the Los Angeles Auto Show is not only a gorgeous grand touring coupe, but also a technological tour de force.

It also happens to be a running, working automobile. And so we jumped out of our chairs when Audi offered us a the chance to actually drive the one-off through the streets of Beverly Hills.

The car isn’t intended to be flashy. “‘Timeless but progressive’ are the brand values we want to communicate,” said exterior designer Parys Cybulski. “We don’t want to be too up-to-date, which two years later is already outdated. We want to stay really modern and display the latest technology, but not in an over-complicated way. Stay logical, because design that survives, it has a kind of logical function.”

Unlike many new designs, the Prologue does not look like it’s moving when it’s standing still; it doesn’t have an impossibly long front end or a cabin that’s been airswept back over the rear wheels. Rather, it appears planted. “We have the real quattro, the four-wheel drive, and we want to emphasize this,” said Cebulski. “In a BMW, you can see it’s a rear-wheel drive vehicle...Audi is more central, more flattened down between the wheels...the way it stands implies that all the wheels have power.”

Critics have said that the Prologue’s less futuristic front-end does not reach far enough, but Cybulski says that is intentional: “We don’t want to break into something new, we want to strengthen that this is Audi; this is where we come from.” All together, the look is strong and beautiful, if somewhat familiar: stretch out the front end a bit and we might have a clone of the Aston Martin Rapide’s winsome mug.

The Prologue has a story to tell above the waist, too. The pillar-less windows draw clear and immediate connections to the sexy new Mercedes-Benz S-Class coupe that would be this car’s most direct competitor should get the green light. Another clever trick is the use of a brushed metal “cheater” panel just inside the rear edge of the window line, giving the actual window an A5-style notch, while the outstretched chrome arch connects it to Audi’s luxury sedans. The rear window is actually concave, not unlike Chevrolet Impala coupes from the 1960s and 1970s, among other cars throughout history, and while it looks great on the Prologue, it might be tough to mass-produce without distortion.

Touching a pad on the exterior beneath the window (no show car ever has handles) grants one access to one of the most tastefully futuristic interiors ever created for an automobile. Like the exterior, it’s all about width. Dashboard controls are arranged in a left-to-right orientation rather than top-to-bottom, not unlike American luxury cars from the 1970s. Ain’t nothing retro about dashboard’s four touchscreen surfaces, though, especially its dramatic, bending OLED (organic light emitting diode) glass panel for the car’s “MMI Touch” interface, which curls up to meet one’s hand when the car turns on. This represents a stunning departure from the round controllers with touch pads and haptic feedback to the use of an iPhone-like interface.