How this study shown as Audi eventually became the VW Scirocco

Amid the large car factories of Volkswagen and Auto Union, to which Audi belonged, little Karmann was an outsider. Although it had its hands full with the production of the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and Beetle Cabriolet, in the early 1970s saw the end of both models approaching rapidly. And as befits a good entrepreneur, the Osnabrück factory took initiatives in good time to secure new orders from Volkswagen. Karmann played it smart and contacted Giorgetto Giugiaro, who had impressed in 1970 with his attractive VW-Porsche Tapiro, and with whom Karmann had already collaborated in 1971 to realize the experimental Volkswagen/Karmann Cheetah.

Take a good look at those lines: a source of inspiration also for the later Lancia Delta and Lotus Esprit, by Giugiaro.

Karmann had thought that Giugiaro could nicely draw an attractive coupé based on the most important new model from the Volkswagen and Auto-Union stables: the Audi 80 from 1972. Giugiaro wanted to draw a coupé based on this strikingly sporty driving sedan, so that Karmann could subsequently pin his hopes on its serial production. Giugiaro started sketching and, remarkably enough, took the liberty of making absolutely no reference to the Audi 80 in his design. He just pasted the logo with the four rings in the grille, which, viewed with a friendly eye, might have some Audi traits. Furthermore, everything was radically different about the Italian coupé, in the sense that every imaginable line was made extremely straight and angular.

Now the Audi 80 was quite a sleek car to look at, but compared to Giugiaro’s coupé, the German sedan was, so to speak, as round as a Beetle. The name was mysterious: Asso di Picche, Italian for ace of spades. Giugiaro would later also make an Asso di Quadri (ace of clubs, for BMW) and an Asso die Fiori (ace of diamonds, for Isuzu). Ace of hearts was missing to complete the card quartet. In any case, the design of the Asso di Picche was appreciated by the people at Audi, but the aspired contract for series production was not in it. Fortunately, Giugiaro and Karmann were able to quickly put that disappointment behind them, because the Asso di Picche was wholeheartedly adopted by Volkswagen. The design still had to be sketched and planed in Italy, which would eventually go into production in Osnabrück as the Volkswagen Scirocco. No ace of hearts. A heart thief. This early design proposal for the VW Scirocco was clearly an evolved version of the Asso di Picche.