Confirming a recent rumor, Audi has introduced a rugged-looking concept car called prologue allroad. The station wagon will greet the public for the first time next week at the biennial Shanghai Motor Show.
Simply put, the prologue allroad is an off-road-focused evolution of the prologue avant concept that debuted last month at the Geneva Motor Show. Built to preview what the allroad station wagon of the future could look like, the concept features black plastic trim over the wheel arches and the rocker panels, brushed aluminum roof rails and oversized 22-inch five-spoke alloy wheels.
The updates are not merely aesthetic. The prologue’s suspension has been raised by three inches, while shorter bumpers on both ends help the wagon get over rough terrain with ease by increasing the approach and departure angles.
While the prologue avant featured a diesel-electric hybrid drivetrain, its allroad-badged sibling benefits from a more powerful gasoline-electric setup consisting of a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter TFSI V8 engine and a small electric motor that is built into the hybrid-specific eight-speed tiptronic gearbox. The concept is built for the outdoors so it goes without saying that it is equipped with Audi’s weather-beating quattro all-wheel drive system.
The two power sources generate an impressive 734 horsepower and 663 foot-pounds of torque, enough to send the wagon from zero to 62 mph in 3.5 seconds. When driven at a more leisurely pace, the allroad is capable of returning up to 98 mpg in a mixed European cycle.
The disc-shaped motor gets electricity from a lithium-ion battery pack mounted beneath the cargo compartment. Fully juiced up, the pack holds enough electricity for the motor to drive the allroad by itself for up to 33 miles. Audi’s futuristic wireless charger, a technology that will soon be available on the automaker’s regular-production cars, eliminates the need to plug the wagon in at night.
The prologue allroad concept will likely not join the Audi lineup as-is, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it lends a handful of styling cues to the next-gen A6 allroad that will hit the market before the end of the decade.
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