White Whale: Unspoiled TT

Remember the O.G. TT? Remember how, when the Mays/Thomas dynamic duo ran "Auto Union/streamliner Benz/bathtub Porsche" through their patented fin de sicle neoretropomo design generator, the only way you could tell whether the resulting four-wheeled SS helmet was coming or going was by the color of the corner lenses? That was kinda cool, right?

Then I guess there were some high-speed accidents or something, possibly due to the fact that when you design a car with pretty much the exact shape of an airfoil it might then behave as a lifting body, and Audi, not wanting to watch its brand reputation go down the crapper again, quickly slapped a spoiler on that back of that heretofore perfectly symmetrical rear end and, just to be safe, recalled every car that'd been sold to date and spoiled them as well.

Thus was born one of carspotting's great holy grails: the unmolested TT. A car common enough that it can easily hide in plain view, and yet so rare that in ten years of dedicating, ridiculously, some part of the vast unused acreage of my brain to perpetual lookout duty, I had not once encountered it. I'd come close, recently, thinking I might've spotted one in the pages of a fellow obsessive's blog, but it was, alas, a mirage, and the box went yet unchecked, even by proxy. Until yesterday.

Meadowbrook Parkway, Long Island, New York, July 15, 2011, approximately ten a.m. Nimbus gray convertible. No spoiler. Got 'im!

Click for grainy Bigfoot-style full-size