THE HEADLINE “Audi loses its head – will you lose yours?” isn’t just a hackneyed play on words about a car’s transition from coupe to convertible.

Those with longer memories will remember how, for one brief moment in 1999, the original style icon came this close to disaster, after several early examples under certain autobahn conditions at speeds in excess of 180km/h lost control due to an alleged stability issue.

But so was the titanic impact (this time, no pun intended) of this ‘90s Bauhaus-inspired design masterpiece that a quick-thinking Audi engineer quickly retuned the suspension and stability control and fitted a tiny lip spoiler (retrospectively in most cases) on the rounded rump of every Mk1 TT to ensure there were no more lift-off melodramas. And just like magic everybody seemed to forget about the crisis, despite a death toll.