We were all stunned by the looks of Audi's E-Tron GT Concept that the German Automaker unexpectedly unveiled at the L.A. Autoshow. The electric four-door coupe is slated to become the benchmark performance model in the E-Tron range and is co-developed with Audi's competition arm, Audi Sport. What is more, the outlandish design is set to remain vastly unchanged when the car enters production in 2020, if we are to believe Audi's design boss, Marc Lichte.

I'm a fan of the E-Tron GT Concept, and I'm not a fan of too many new cars. That's why I wrote in my previous pieces on the subject of this car that I hope it will remain intact - from a visual standpoint - when it hits showrooms in less than two year's time. Now, we hear that Marc Lichte confirmed to the media at a roundtable organized during the L.A. Auto Show that most of the sheet metal we see on the concept will be carried over to the production car. You can imagine some alterations will be made, mostly in the name of safety, but that should be it.

Who's excited about an Audi looking as good as the E-Tron GT Concept?

That's good news because the dark-colored concept shown at the L.A. Auto Show features some of the most aggressive lines we've seen on any Audi ever. From the widened wheel arches to the superb bar-style taillights and the LED and laser headlights. It all comes together in a great package. It is, basically, an Audi A7 if the A7 would hit the gym for a few months and get new, trendier, clothes.

If we are to believe Marc Lichte, Audi's Chief of Design, then the E-Tron GT Concept really is a very close preview to the production model. "This is a metal sheet body already, and you can imagine how close it is with a metal sheet body, Lichte said in a roundtable interview quoted by Motor Authority. With that being said, expect the rotor-like wheels to be smaller on the production car - something like 20 inches in diameter - and the door handles should be more archaic as well.

"We started working on the e-tron (GT) two years ago...when I first saw the Taycan. And we thought about what if we use this platform and do an Audi version on top of it without sharing detail in the exterior or interior," Lichte said. As such, the Audi features significantly pointer lines and an eco-friendly ('Vegan' is the word used by Audi) interior.

The single-frame grille has been part of Audi's design language for over a decade now and, while we've reported that it's here to stay even on EVs, it won't grow any larger. In an interview with Motor Trend, Andreas Mindt, Audi's head of exterior design, said that "it's not the big mouth anymore," and that "It's not growing growing growing, it's not like this."

We have an inkling of how Audi's new grilles will look like if we analyze the grille of the E-Tron GT Concept. Since it's an electric car, it doesn't need the grille, but the grille is there - with a twist. The top part is painted in the same 'Kinetic Dust' color as the rest of the bodywork. This seems to be the way Mindt and his team are exploring. "When you paint the frame black, it looks bigger," he said. "When you paint the frame body color, it looks smaller there are a lot of things you can do architecture-wise to change that, and we have a lot of good ideas for that."

While we won't see the finalized E-Tron GT until the second half of 2020, expect the concept to pop up as Tony Stark's means of transportation in the upcoming Avengers movie.

Further Reading

Read our full review on the 2018 Audi e-Tron GT Concept.

Read our full speculative review on the 2020 Audi E-Tron GT.

Read our full review on the 2018 Tesla Model S.

Read our full review on the 2020 Porsche Taycan.