Ken Block’s Audi S1 ‘Hoonitron’ breaks cover ahead of ‘Electrikhana’ debut

While the original Hoonitron concept was wrapped in matte grey and silver with day-glow orange, its new white, red and grey colours reflect those of the Audi Quattro S1 E2 – driven by rally legend Walter Rohrl at the famous Pikes Peak hillclimb in 1987.

Speaking to Hoonigan co-founder Brian Scotto, Block detailed the decision to not only incorporate the design of his own sponsors – such as long-time backer Monster Energy – but to focus on Audi’s motorsport heritage.

“Normally we would just take that current (Monster Energy) livery and be like, ‘okay what’s the version on this car’, but that didn’t make sense with the whole kind of storyline of what we were doing with this car (the Hoonitron),” Block said in a Hoonigan YouTube video.

“It really made sense to take Audi’s initial livery that they launched with this thing because they had turbo-fan (wheels) on there with oversized tyres in a really dramatic livery which wouldn’t work so well for when you have to add sponsor logos. 

“It was a very tough process taking the incredible design that they had and mixing it with what we need to do with all of our sponsor logos. This took many more iterations than we would normally take to put together a livery but I’m really happy with the way that it turned out. 

“The goal here was we still wanted it to sit next to the (Audi Quattro) S1 E2 and have it speak to each other – that was the whole point of this car, being a modern version of a Group B machine.”

The Audi Hoonitron is powered by four batteries from the Q7 plug-in hybrid SUV, delivering energy to the car’s dual electric motors – one for the front and rear axle respectively.

According to Brian Scotto, the Audi Hoonitron destroyed more than 100 tyres while filming the next Gymkhana video.

The 11th Gymkhana video – dubbed ‘Electrikhana’ – is due to be released on YouTube on October 25.