The Fallen Stars Audi RSQ

What better invitation for a designer than to create a visionary interpretation of the car of a possible future? Walter de Silva, at the time Director of Design at Audi, took the opportunity to consider many stylistic features in preparation for future, real-world models, as peculiar characteristics of the car that the producer of the film “I, Robot” wanted in his movie, set in the Chicago cityscape in the year 2035. 

However much imagination you want to have, you can never predict the future. Will the Audi RSQ disprove this theory with its spherical wheels?

The trapezoidal “Single-Frame Grille” immediately identifies the car as an Audi while the front and rear LED lights were a delightful anticipation of things to come. We are at the turn of the Millennium and for a car that in the film works without a driver – today it seems possible, back then it was a very bold move – de Silva “invented” a way to move the car in all directions. 

The vertically opening doors are rear-hinged, potentially suitable for a world in which the even atmosphere around us will be different

A simple invention, the same one used by his office chair: he used spheres instead of conventional wheels. This idea gives the RSQ real character that combines these surprising spherical wheels with a line defined by perfectly polished surfaces that are immediately associated with Audi. 

Surfaces with a very pure and almost smooth line on a car that offers the least possible air resistance

The interior was very far ahead of its time: the steering wheel was yoke shaped as many others are today, while all the driving information was displayed digitally via the instrument cluster by Audi's Multi-Media Interface (MMI) unit. The butterfly doors open vertically and there is the inscription “RSQ” on the door sills, just like on the more recent Audi RS. 

Unequivocally Audi with the characteristic Single-Frame, the RSQ anticipated the now-common LED headlights

For the engine, he chose one from the family collection: the 5.0 V10 from the Lamborghini Gallardo, producing 610 horsepower. It would have been interesting to see how those spherical wheels behaved in an acceleration test! 

The shape of the rear clearly shows the presence of spherical wheels, invented specifically for the film "I, Robot"

Steering wheel, dashboard and interior anticipated many of the solutions adopted by Audi today

Will Smith, the lead actor of "I, Robot", with the RSQ in one scene during filming