Timeless design icon - The Audi TT turns 25

25 years, three generations: With the Audi TT, the brand with the four rings has written design history. Since its premiere in 1998, the sports car has thrilled customers worldwide with its driving pleasure and clear design language. "Auto Europe" voted it the best new car of the year in 1999. The Audi A8 luxury model in the mid-1990s elevated the Audi brand to a higher position and gradually also led to the renaming of the model series: The Audi 80 became the Audi A4, and the Audi 100 became the Audi A6. The Audi A4 presented in 1994 was the first model to represent the new Audi design language, as did the Audi A3 premium compact car, which became available in 1996, and the second generation of the Audi A6 presented in 1997. In the course of this emotionalization of the brand through fresh, progressive design, the American designer Freeman Thomas, under the then Head of Design Peter Schreyer, created the Audi TT Coupé, a purist sports car. Audi presented the study to an enthusiastic trade show audience at the IAA in Frankfurt am Main in September 1995. The model designation "TT" is reminiscent of the legendary Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man, one of the oldest motor sport events in the world, in which NSU and DKW celebrated great successes with their motorcycles; at the same time, the name "TT" recalls the sporty NSU TT of the 1960s. The Audi TT Coupé's deliberate departure from the usual Audi nomenclature underscores the fact that something completely new is coming.