Testing a new car at the Nurburgring is one thing. Spy photogs are probably as prominent at the track during the week as fans during a race and taking a car here there's a sure bet photos will be up quickly... less than a few hours in the case of the RS 5 quattro GmbH's boss once told us. However, photos taken in Audi's development building are something you usually don't see. We've been to that building in Ingolstadt and the shots just posted over on AutoExpress revealing the A7 Sportback well ahead of schedule sure look like that's where they were nabbed.
So What Do We Think?
No doubt these are not photoshops and this was likely less than planned as Audi strictly forbids shots in this area of the factory, but they seem to have gotten out just the same and show what looks like the A7 or possibly a facelifted A5 Sportback with covers off as it's prepped for an outing.
AutoExpress says the car is based on an A5 chassis and will debut in Paris. We hear it may be shown sooner, and the chassis is definitely MLB or the modular underpinnings for everything from A4 on up to A8. However, the A7 will likely be more akin to the A6 in footprint size and that makes the A5 reference a bit misleading. A7 will also likely get a more liberal use of aluminum and other weight saving materials given its larger price tag and thus more financial room for exotic materials.
Expect S7 and RS 7 variants and our guess is various states of tune of the upcomign 4.0T twin turbo V8 for these two models as we've confirmed the new motor at least for the S6 though it will debut in the A8.
See high-res of two spy photos of at AutoExpress and read their whole story after the jump.
Full Story
