Slide Show

Wolfgang Egger, Audi’s design chief, took a few minutes last week at the New York auto show to explain the shape of the company’s new A3 and S3 models, and his new twist to the evolution of the Audi grille. Mr. Egger, 50, pulled out one of his burnt sienna drawing pencils to highlight his ideas.

The grille is important, he explained, because other companies have signature grilles with more history. Audi had to develop its symbolic identity more consciously. The result has become so critical to the company’s identity that it has trademarked the word “Singleframe” for a car grille.

Mr. Egger sketched a broad history of the grille’s development over the last 30-plus years, beginning with a sketch meant to represent the grille as it existed before, which he marked “’70” to represent the 1970s. Then he began a second sketch.

“The beginning was horizontal and low, with the first Quattro,” he said as he drew, referring to the “Ur Quattro” all-wheel drive performance car of 1980. That design, which featured a longer, narrow second grille beneath the main one, appeared on several Audi models through the 1980s.

Then, he said, “there is a relation between the two grilles but they are divided.” He marked this sketch “’90” to represent that era of design innovation; during that era Hartmut Warkuss, Audi’s longtime design director, mentored young designers including J Mays and Freeman Thomas. The grille from that period can be seen on Audi models into the 2000s, like the 2002 A4.

Mr. Egger began yet another sketch. “Where the form comes together, completing the design, this is the first Singleframe,” he said.

That came when Walter de Silva arrived from Alfa Romeo to take over Audi’s design studio and instituted a bold, upright — and at first controversial — version of the grille, as seen on the Nuvolari concept of 2003. “Now the grille becomes strong and not just functional but symbolic,” Mr. Egger said.

“This was with the A8 of that generation,” he continued, referring to Audi’s top-of-the-line model, which received the trapezoidal Singleframe grille during a 2005 mid-cycle refresh. “For the first time it has the force — functional, structural and symbolic all at once. Like the big brands who have 100 years of history and who never have to change their grille, we now have the symbolic.”

In the next stage, Mr. Egger said, Audi refined the Singleframe to add more character under the direction of Stefan Sielaff, Mr. Egger’s predecessor as head of Audi brand design. This crisp cornered version, Mr. Egger said, was like a knight’s shield. It can be seen on many current models, including the 2013 A4; various color and mesh patterns within the Singleframe distinguish Audi’s sportier S and RS models.

“In the Crosslane concept in Paris we showed the next step,” he said. “We keep the Singleframe but do the next step — the three-dimensional, sculptural shape.” Now the grille, he said, is fuller and attached to the frame of the car. This has functional advantages for meeting impact and pedestrian regulations; it also works for branding. “The three-dimensional opens a world for us to distinguish the models,” Mr. Egger said. It will show up first on the new Q3 crossover, whose face resembles the final sketch in Mr. Egger’s series.

Turning to the A3, Mr. Egger pointed out that the sedan was designed with the United States market foremost in mind. The American market currently receives only the wagon, which will no longer be sold here.

“It is a sport sedan,” he said, sketching the A3. “You make it a sports car with the silhouette,” he said, sketching the long, low roof. Then he added the full body and tenderly hatched and shaded large wheels.

“Then there is what we call the tornado line,” he said, energetically swiping back and forth along the upper body. “That is really Toronado line of course,” he noted, “from the Oldsmobile model.”

There is a story behind the name, and it links back to Audi. Warkuss, like many auto designers, was an admirer of the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado, General Motors’ first modern front-wheel drive car; he often praised the model’s dynamic side character line in talks to his designers. The word “Toronado” was mangled into “tornado,” naturally enough, as it entered designer lingo first at Audi and then among the wider profession.