In the 48 hours since news dropped of the RS 6 GT, we’ve seen a mix of responses. Some people love it and some hate it, which is perhaps not surprising for a station wagon fitted with racecar stripes. And while we tend to land on “love it” (surprised? this is Audi Club after all), what we love even more is pretty simple… the badges.
It’s at this point we’re going to hat tip BMW. The Bavarian brand B began doing some heritage badges of its own last year, and that resonated strongly with longtime fans of the brand. And why wouldn’t it. It harkens nostalgia for an excellent era, as does the RS 6 GT.
At just 85 units and likely with a highly exclusive (a.k.a. expensive) price point, not everyone can get in on the nostalgic love. But what if Audi offered a Heritage Optics package for their cars.? We experimented with just that sort of idea on this RS 3 sedan.
The idea here is pretty simple. We use the “tri colore” brown, beige and red rhombus that harks the early years of Audi Sport and was used prominently last year in the 40 Jahre of Audi Sport anniversary celebration.
We also love the triple white color scheme of the RS 6 GT. While it’s not for everybody, it harks an era of Sport quattros, Coupe GTs and 4000 CS quattros beyond the obvious IMSA GTO and 200 Trans-Am racing programs.
So, that in mind, we took an RS 3 sedan in white with black optics. With a 5-cylinder engine and 4-door profile, the RS 3 definitely harks the IMSA GTO and the Sport quattro, 4000 CS quattro era vibe in a very authentic way. All we did here then was throw on some of the “tri-colore” Audi Sport rhombus badges as seen on the RS 6 GT, and the new white four ring logo seen on the most recent facelift Q8, Q8 e-tron and Q7.
Beyond triple white, we’d also suggest a mix of colors that hark the three colors in that rhombus. To our eye, that’s a brown (Teak Brown?), a beige (Siam Beige?) and a red… the latter where we’d lobby hard for the orange-tinged Catalunya Red that was a launch color for the first RS 3 sedan and also the first e-tron.
So what do you think? Should Audi do a Heritage Optics package on its whole fleet of vehicles?
