After close to a year of agonizing, I finally broke down and subscribed to cable television. I could care less about anyone who wants to be a millionaire, and the "Survivor" island could sink to the bottom of the ocean as far as I'm concerned.
For me the single most important factor was the ability to watch F1 and World Rally events on Speedvision. While watching the best network on TV, I was thrilled to see that Audi has returned to its spiritual roots with a marketing campaign dedicated to quattro, the technology that would forever change rally racing and the face of passenger-car driveline technology forever.
The commercials show how the quattro became a rally weapon par excellence. The voiceover is spoken by the still alluring Michelle Mouton, the most famous woman in rally history, explaining how she conquered the world's attention behind the wheel of a quattro. One commercial shows a Sport Quattro and an S1 flying through the air in a fantastic display of rally acrobatics.
Most amazing about these commercials is the fact it's been over 10 years since the last Quattro-the capital Q refers to the original Quattro-rolled from Audi's Ingolstadt assembly line. In those dark days of the late 1980s, Audi's prospects in the U.S. reached an all-time low, mostly due to a rigged television expos that attributed unintended acceleration to Audi design flaws. The company would later be vindicated, but the damage was done.
Were it not for the loyal following of Audi Quattro converts, and those who appreciated and aspired to have all-wheel drive, the business landscape for the company would be remarkably different today.
Drawing from the success of the original Quattro-known affectionately as the ur-Quattro-the all-wheel-drive technology would be implemented across Audi's line of passenger cars and wagons, a tradition that continues to this day.
While today's Audi cars with quattro are immeasurably more powerful and refined, to a purist there is only one Quattro. Low-mileage Quattros from the sunbelt states-where they were an anomaly-are highly coveted and can command a hefty price.
As it is with most German car companies, Audi's technological progress has been mostly evolutionary, with continual updates and improvements until the next revolutionary advancement starts the next evolutionary change (for example, the 1.8t engine and multitronic transmission). To the automotive tinkerer, this opens up a world of updates and improvements far beyond the factory offerings.
Readers might remember ec's last visit with a Quattro in the 09/98 article "Uber Quattro." That car, owned by Bob Nikels, proprietor of Sewickley Audi in Sewickley, Penn., was meticulously restored by Rich Weber, one of the dealership's technicians. That Quattro featured a 20-valve turbocharged engine and updates to the running gear and suspension, not to mention a full ground-up body and interior restoration. Clearly this was a money-losing proposition to those who think of return on investment as monetary, but to a Quattro enthusiast it was money well spent.
Fast-forward to today and we find another Sewickley-restored car gracing these pages, this one owned by customer Charles Day and also an '83 model. It is one of only 240 sold in the U.S. that year.
With this restoration Weber took a slightly different tack and dipped heavily into rare-model Audi parts bins to come up with a unique combination.
Starting under the long hood, this Quattro sports a mishmash of parts beautifully integrated into a cohesive unit. At the bottom, the 2.2L block comes by way of a '95 S6. (For those not familiar with S models, Audi uses that letter to denote its performance-inspired models as BMW does with M.)
The original S6 was built in 1995 and was available in both sedan and Avant forms. It featured a 227-bhp engine and quattro all-wheel drive, and it was the source of chagrin for many unsuspecting stoplight racers who saw the back end of a family wagon that could accelerate to 60 in a tick over 6 sec. Mounted to the S6 block is a ported and polished head prepared in-house at Sewickley that's said to deliver 10-percent more flow.
Dipping into the obscure parts bins yielded a number of items from the limited-edition Audi RS2. For those new Audificionados (I think I just made up a word and expect royalties for any future use-BL), the RS2 was a wagon tuned and assembled by Porsche. With its 315-bhp engine, tuned chassis and Porsche brakes, the RS2 was for all intents and purposes a five-door supercar. With the capability of 3.1-sec. blasts from 0 to 30 mph, it was purported to be as quick as a McLaren F1, with 60 mph coming up in 5.4 sec. The RS2 in Audi terms is only bested by the RS4, which clips another 0.5 sec. off 0-to-60 times.