Audi TT 8N - Where does the name TT come from

Before the TT got its name and was named after the Tourist Trophy*, a number of variants were of course proposed:

The Gaimersheim a small suburb near Ingolstad (Audi headquarters)
Audi Edelweiß as Freeman Thomas liked to appear in the design studio in Lederhosen and with Trachtenhut

Some less serious proposals at the time were:

TT which stands for Tourist Trophy. But this name generated discussion in connection with the link to NSU history and therefore quickly fell off the list
C3 or A3C in line with current naming conventions (since 1994 Audi models started with an A) in the Audi group and since the TT was based on the Audi A3

In the end, the choice was the Audi A3C. With the Audi nomenclature in mind and with the technical basis a logical choice. However, a week after choosing Audi A3C, the project team still came to Audi's board with a request to go for the Audi TT name after all.

TT idea and preference Peter Schreyer
Speaking to Autovisie in August 2023**, on the occasion of 25 years of the Audi TT Coupé, he said he had always been enamoured of car names with a double letter like the Ferrari 512 BB. On the return journey from Vienna to Ingolstadt, he went through the alphabet looking for the right combination and got stuck on the sound of TT. A letter combination that had been used before at NSU.

* Source: interview with Dr Franz-Josef Paefgen (then Audi board member) in Das TT Buch
** Source: Autovisie September 2023 and Sjoerd Weetjes with Peter Schreyer (then chief designer Audi)