Audi has released a series of official design sketches showing a new compact crossover concept that is planned to make its world premiere at the Detroit motor show in early January.

Billed as a design study, the new crossover is said to provide hints to the appearance of the next generation of Audi Q models, including a new Q1-badged offering confirmed for production in 2016 by the German car maker’s chairman, Rupert Stadler, earlier this week.

Audi describes its high-riding crossover as possessing a traditional shooting brake-like body with two long doors and an angled estate-style tailgate.

In keeping with a design lineage that can be traced all the way back to the original TT concept car, it also sports a high waistline, shallow glasshouse and prominently flared wheel houses that accommodate the concept car’s 19-inch wheels.

Further design elements include a new interpretation of the German car maker’s signature single frame grille, into which the word “quattro” appears as a nod to the new concept’s four-wheel drive system. The crossover’s heavily tapered front-end also houses distinctive trapezoidal-shaped headlamps featuring what the initial design sketches allude to as being LED graphics.

A defined shoulder, or “Tornardo line” as Audi refers to it,  dominates the flanks, running from the headlamp all the way through to the tail-lamp. Cladding within the wheelhouses and along the sill hint at the new Audi’s ability to head off-road, in keeping with official information that suggests it possesses “high ground clearance”, is a “car for all roads and tracks” and is suitable both for “everyday driving and sporty recreational use”.

A long wheelbase and short overhangs are claimed to combine with wide tracks both front and rear to provide the new five-seater with what Audi describes as a “confident stance”.

At 4200mm in length, Audi’s latest concept is almost 200mm shorter than the first-generation Q3, leading to rumours ahead of its unveiling that it is, in fact, a lightly veiled look at the upcoming Q1.

Audi first hinted to a crossover positioned underneath the Q3 with its Crosslane Coupé concept at the Paris motor show in 2012.

E-tron identification within the sill area of the car depicted in the official sketches indicates the new Audi crossover concept will showcase a plug-in petrol-electric hybrid system; most likely a similar system to that used in the company’s first plug-in hybrid production model, the A3 e-tron.