Friday, July 6, 2012

The rebirth of an Audi DTM legend: ABT TT-R


By Johan Laubscher

Everyone remembers the Audi TT race cars that competed in the DTM from 2000-2003. Officially named the ABT-Audi TT-R, these cars were absolute fan favourites. The cars competed in the DTM and also in the Nürburgring 24 Hours. After the TT-R was replaced by the A4 DTM many of the old cars were sold to customers. All the cars that were sold were converted to the endurance specification such as the Nürburgring 24 Hours TT-R cars. These customer cars have been seen in many series all over the world, ranging from Brazil, the Caribbean and all over Europe. In recent years the TT-R cars have become popular in European hillcimb events.

 
One such car was the red and later white TT-R of the Ecce Homo Racing Team driven by Milan Kašpárek. His Audi did very well on the hills of Europe. His car was sold to Vladimír Vitver from the SVC Náchod Motorsport team to continue the car's appearance in European hillclimbs.



Vitver acquired the car and proceeded to modify the car’s appearance. The original TT-R resembled the Mk1 TT (8N) but the visual modification converted the TT-R to the appearance of the Mk2 TT (8J). Many Audi fans consider this modification of a historic Audi racing car as blasphemy, but we have to admit the new car looks very good. The modification includes new front and rear bodywork, a reworked roofline and new rear wing set up. The car still resembles the basic 8N Mk1 TT layout but this does give us all a nice glimpse to what a 8J TT-R could possibly have looked like. The team has named the modified car the Audi WTTR-DTM.

Here are some photos and videos of the car:  

Photos by race-action.com

Before

 

After

 

Videos

 

More information: