If you’re the sort of person for whom the very words Le Mans makes you break out in a fantastic motorsport inspired sweat, then you’ll probably enjoy these images of a very special car.

It’s basically the 1998 design study upon which Audi’s unbelievably successful aspirations of success in the 24hrs was based.

Like all prototypes, it does, unfortunately, look even more beautiful and purely rendered than the cars that actually came to dominate in the first years of this century – but we think you’ll agree this ‘prototype of a prototype’ is worth savouring for its rakish lines alone.

This beauty also teases out the very real relationship between endurance racing success and that of Audi’s road cars – not just in the R8 supercars that are becoming almost as ubiquitous as 911s in certain postcodes – but in the more accessible everyman vehicles that rakishly ply our British byways.

Further justification, if it were needed, of the importance of a racing programme within an illustrious motor works…