Audi readies more stylish A6 for 2017 launch

• The design for the next-generation Audi A6 has already been signed off, design chief Marc Lichte has revealed.
• The new saloon and estate range is set to launch in 2017, and its design will be inspired by the Prologue concept car seen at the recent Los Angeles motor show.
• Lichte, along with technical chief Ulrich Hackenberg, has promised much greater visual differentiation between future Audi models.

• The design for the new A6 was done alongside the next-generation A7 (due 2017) and A8 (due late 2016) to ensure the designs were suitably different and not just scaled-up and scaled-down versions of the same car.
• The Prologue concept car was done after the future production models, Lichte claimed, to ensure that its design was relevant to the future and would not over-promise and under-deliver.
• The new A6 will be underpinned by the second-generation MLB platform, which will appear first on the Q7 SUV early next year before being rolled out across a whole range of Volkswagen Group products sized from the Audi A5 and upwards.
• Its arrival in 2017 is timely, its launch coming in the months after that of next-generation versions of its two biggest rivals, the BMW 5-series and Mercedes-Benz E-class.
• A new Jaguar XF is also in the works in the executive saloon class and will beat all of its next-generation rivals to market. It will be revealed at the New York motor show in April 2015 before going on sale in the UK later in the summer.