Behind-the-scenes of Electrikhana 2 | Ken Block x Audi S1 e-tron quattro Hoonitron
It’s been over a year since we traveled to Mexico City to film what would be the second installment of the Electrikhana series with Ken Block. And it’s been almost a year since he tragically left us. Over the first six months I think we sat trying to figure out
How exactly to put all of this together. And… we knew it had to come out. We knew it was something that Ken would want out. But it took a while for all of us to, for lack of better words, build up the courage to put it together.
So Audi and the rest of the Hoonigan gang felt we should we should tell this. And that’s what this film is that you’re going to watch today. Which is a little bit of the story of everything that we had to do, and everything we had to overcome,
But also the new things we learned on working with the Hoonitron. And the excitement that brought Ken and I because after I can’t even count. 15, 13, I don’t know. Gymkhana films. It was exciting to do something new and try some different stuff. So, enjoy Vegas was a super difficult shoot.
We’ve talked about doing a Gymkhana at night, the story of an electric vehicle in an electric city, vibrant electric look. For me, it was definitely one of the most difficult shoots. We’re dealing with so many different factors, from a new car to a different type of filming situation to trying to do things
Cool and different. It was definitely a big challenge. I think we wanted to look at that and say, let’s flip it and do something entirely different. We share a real passion with everybody at Audi. It’s been so much fun to work with them on this. And for both of us, you know,
This is a brand that we’ve loved since we first got into cars. And I mean, from when it was the days of this. And now to be able to take something like Electrikhana and be a part of the future of everything that we’re doing with Audi, is just awesome.
They’ve had a very accelerated build and development plan for this car. It’s a very aggressive approach because you just don’t build prototype cars that go out and do these things in six months. While the Hoonitron is an absolutely amazing machine, we realized that the transition from Gymkhanas in a combustion based vehicle
To EV brought a whole level of problems we didn’t even think would be there for Ken as a driver. The Hoonitron over the course of the first film and the second film went through a ton of changes to try to remedy these issues. So since we filmed in Vegas,
We’ve been focusing with Audi to try and develop in the areas that it was weak. And we’ve had a lot of success, actually, I should say: Audi has had a lot of success. He wished for us to put in something that gives him a better feeling in slower speeds. These virtual gears
Were installed in the car. It’s been very impressive to see them take on this project and do the things that they’ve been doing. There’s nothing that compares to it worldwide. It’s a regulation of the revolutions, the revolutions of the wheels to be exact. We also installed a button in the vehicle
To change the direction of travel in an instant. We’re now past the point of just these rally inspired tricks, which is really what created the original template for Gymkhana and we’ve now moved into what weird stuff can we do? We’ve developed the car that it can do more than a combustion motor car.
And that was our goal. There’s three crucial ingredients to every Gymkhana film. One: Ken’s driving. Two: The perfect vehicle. And three: The ideal location. Mexico City is extremely unique. One of the things that make it so special is this wild, varied modernism, architecture and design here. For us, it’s very refreshing
To come here and feature something completely different and unexpected to most people. Even just the small details have a very progressive sort of aesthetic to it. That’s what we wanted as the backdrop for the next film. Ken really wanted to elevate the livery from just a bunch of sponsor logos
To something that actually felt like art. It was the part that really made Ken stand out in the beginning, and I think it set a trend for everyone to follow after. Whenever we set out to make a film like the livery package, it’s such a big part of just setting the car apart.
For Electrikhana 1, we wanted to pay homage to like early rally liveries right, and it’s that the classic Audi colors, the red, gray, black and white kind of color scheme. For this year, it was like we wanted to do something slightly different, but sort of stay in that same realm.
And we sort of went through a big exploration of like a bunch of different stuff. It was not easy. We tried a lot of different ideas. We just wanted something that was a bit simpler, a bit bold. Trying to make the livery even feel a little bit tougher than the past two liveries.
And so we ended up with something fairly simple and was a lot more black in it. For Ken, the most important part in anything we filmed in Gymkhana was that it was real. That’s why there was so many different takes, We didn’t want to combine a bunch of different things
That didn’t really happen. It was important that we showed something that happened. It came from skateboarding. You had to make the trick to be able to show it. What the Hoonitron offered us was the ability to do things that we actually didn’t think were possible previously. That was really exciting.
The ability to use technology to do things that previously weren’t possible for us. You know, Brian’s doing the main scouts and finding stuff and then showing me and I’m like, okay, well that’s a really cool intersection. And now let’s apply some of these new things we know that the car can do,
Or even taking some of the traditional stuff and just doing it a different way. The thing is like at the end of the day, I’m still a rally driver. I still want to do things that make sense to me as a racecar driver. I’m not a circus clown like I’m
Not a guy that just likes to do tricks. Like I want to do things that are really creative with a race car. And so we are kind of getting into the realm of what we call weird, you know? But it’s like we still want to do it
In such a way that makes sense to us and looks cool to us as car people. Shoots with Ken Block are always nerve wrecking to me. But we’ve already experienced so much together and of course this made us a tight knit unit. So it was a lot of fun.
It was a very big creative challenge but it was quite unique working with our Hoonigan team and with the Audi team to go out and create a really fun film project.
Embark on an electrifying journey of Electrikhana 2. Dive behind-the-scenes of our Hoonitron project, experiencing the evolution of electric racing. Join us in celebrating Ken Block’s legacy and explore the technology of the Audi S1 e-tron quattro Hoonitron*. This is a tribute to progress, performance and a shared vision between a motorsport icon and Audi.
Watch Electrikhana 2: https://youtu.be/U4FAqwkn-pc
#Audi #S1Hoonitron #ElectrikhanaTwo #KB43ver
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*The vehicle shown is not available as production model. Professional driver, closed circuit. Do not attempt.
