Audi RSQ a car with no wheels

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The Audi RSQ is a mid-engined concept car developed by Audi AG for use as a product placement in the 2004 sci-fi film I, Robot. It is meant to depict a technologically advanced automobile in the Chicago cityscape from the year 2035.

This sports coupé is a visionary interpretation of Audi's typical automobile design. An important challenge presented to the designers was that despite its extreme character, the car still had to be recognised by the audience as an Audi. To accommodate this demand, the engineers implemented a current Audi front-end design which includes the trapezoidal "Audi Single-Frame Grille", the company's trademark overlapping four rings, and the Multi Media Interface (MMI) driver-to-car control system.

The RSQ also includes special features suggested by film director Alex Proyas.The car uses spheres instead of conventional wheels. Its two reverse butterfly doors are hinged to the B-posts of the body.

Although this kind of collaboration was a first for Audi, a similar project was developed by Lexus for use in the 2002 film Minority Report.
with a price of about $80000

For the first time ever, Audi developed a car specifically for a major Hollywood motion picture. Audi engineers created a car for 'I, ROBOT's' incredible world of 2035.

The resulting Audi RSQ sport coupe is a visionary interpretation of Audi's typical design language. The most important thing was that despite its extreme character the car should still be recognized as an Audi. The cinemagoer will therefore see the new Audi front-end with the typical single-frame grille in the movie.

The RSQ includes special features suggested by movie director Alex Proyas. The mid-engined sports car operated by the story's police department, races through the Chicago of the future not on wheels but on spheres. Its two doors are rear-hinged to the C-posts of the body and open according to the butterfly principle.

In addition to the RSQ concept car, Audi supplied further series-production cars which appear - in disguised shapes - in the movie s traffic scenes. Audi also supplied the interior mock-up used for interior car scenes.

Construction

Designers, engineers, technicians and model engineers had just ten weeks to build the concept car. At the beginning of July the Audi RSQ arrived on the set in Vancouver where it was to stay for several months of shooting. Audi also supplied an outer-skin model of the car to be used in a crash scene, as well as a separate interior mock-up to shoot interior scenes.

It is 2035 in Chicago, and cars no longer travel on wheels but on spheres. ''Integrating these spheres into the car's design was one of the greatest challenges we had to solve'', says Julian Hanig, responsible for the RSQ s exterior design. The result was a two-seat, mid-engined sports car with sphere-shaped wheels running in similarly shaped wheel arches. Hanig said. ''This even enhanced the car's sculptured character.''

It is a sculpture that appears very flat, broad and bullish on the road. The laminate glass fiber body of the RSQ is coated with lunar silver paint, which creates the so-called flop effect. That is to say: when exposed to intensive light the bluish sheen of the silver paint takes on a golden tone.

The striking shape of the angular body cutouts for the head-light modules influence the front-end appearance of the RSQ. They are combined with side air inlets. The xenon light tubes behind the clear-glass covers enhance the character of the front-end design.

Where you find the rear window on most sports coupes, an aluminium hood covers the engine in the RSQ. In plain view this cover is an oval, running right up to the windscreen and integrated into the body by a transverse bar.

The gull-wing doors are another RSQ highlight: whenever Will Smith gets into or out of the car, the rear-hinged doors open upwards like a butterfly's wings, and twist slightly at the same time.

Interior

The interior of the RSQ was reduced to the essential elements of driving. Will Smith sits in the car as if in a jet aircraft's cockpit. The center console surrounds the pilot's body in the bucket seat.

The steering wheel is another element in this aircraft cockpit analogy. Like an elevator control, it is open at the top and folds out of the instrument panel after the driver has entered the car.

The cockpit atmosphere of the interior is emphasized by the wide panoramic windscreen that extends back into the roof. The glass surface runs from the right and left roof pillars as far as the rear of the cabin. This ensures a much greater field of view for the driver and passenger.

All relevant information for driving the car is fed into the digital display in the instrument cluster by means of Audi s Multi Media Interface (MMI) control system. The air conditioning and radio of the RSQ are classified as secondary functions. Entertainment functions have been omitted in favor of the sporting concept.

The materials used and the colors of the RSQ interior are part of a function-oriented spatial atmosphere. The color spectrum is exclusively in the darker, more technical appearance area with isolated silvery accents. RSQ lettering illuminated with red light is integrated into the door sills.