The Rivian R3 Was Inspired by the Audi Quattro Coupe and Delta Integrale, Designer Says

I was recently in Laguna Beach, California for the unveiling of the Rivian R2, which is a perfectly functional, mid-size electric SUV. Ho, hum. But when the new R3 and R3X rolled out onto the stage, I became animated. I felt that I was witnessing a reinCARnation. The blunt nose, the hooded eyes, the beveled beltline and flanks, the trapezoidal rear hatch, the alluring squat. It looked like a late 20th-century design from my favorite automotive Crease Monkey, the most influential car designer: Giorgetto Giugiaro. More specifically, it looked like a cross between a Fiat Panda and a Lancia Delta. In other words, a hot-hatched Eighties rally car.

This was not a mistake. When Jeff Hammoud, Rivian’s chief design officer, was trying to figure out what the EV startup’s second car, the R2, was going to be, it was clear that it needed to “get our brand language into a smaller, more affordable price point.” But for the third car, the R3, Hammoud wanted to “expand the definition of what Rivian is.” Beyond trucks and SUVs, beyond big American-scale vehicles. Into a more international footprint and price point.

“The brief I gave the design team was like, we need this to be our Solo Rally Car,” Hammoud told Road & Track. “So on our image boards, we had the Delta Integrale and the Audi Quattro coupe from that era.” But Hammoud didn’t want their design to be slavishly retro. He wanted it to, as he said, have “more of that nostalgic feeling where it looks modern, but where it looks like it’s from the future, and the past, at the same time.”

Part of the goal here was trying to find means to rationalize Rivian’s dual, off-road and on-road performance equities, and shift that out of the go-anywhere promise endemic in the SUV/Truck paradigm.

“How can we do something that's Rivian, that's capable, but is in that indescribable sort of segment,” Hammoud said. “Something that you look at and you’re like, what is that?”