Audi Quattro

Audi Quattro at a glance

Origins: the Iltis in the snow

The idea came from chassis engineer Jörg Bensinger in 1977. During winter tests he saw that the Volkswagen Iltis, a four-wheel-drive off-roader, outperformed much more powerful cars on snow. Walter Treser, head of pre-development, worked with him on a version based on the Audi 80, and Wikipedia also credits Ferdinand Piëch. Transmission engineer Tengler solved the drive to the rear axle with a hollow secondary shaft. Martin Smith styled the flared wheel arches.

Audi unveiled the car on 3 March 1980 at the Geneva show, and European sales began in late 1980. According to auto motor und sport it cost as much as a base Porsche 911 at launch. Autocar tested it in May 1981 and called it very good value at £14,500. UK buyers first had left-hand drive only; evo dates the first right-hand-drive cars to 1982, Wikipedia to summer 1983. US sales began with the 1983 model year, and only 664 cars were sold there. Canada took 99 between 1983 and 1986, 61 of them in the first year.

Timeline 1977–1991

Engines: 10-valve WR and MB, 20-valve RR

The WR used one overhead camshaft, 0.85 bar of boost, an intercooler and Hitachi engine electronics. The North American WX lost 28 kW to its emissions equipment. The MB of 1987 had more displacement but lower peak torque, and from that year the turbocharger was water-cooled. The final RR engine had twin overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder. evo quotes 228 lb ft (309 Nm) at only 1,950 rpm and 0–62 mph in 6.5 seconds. Our power converter translates these outputs into other units.

Changes through the years: dashboards, differentials, faces

The Quattro changed in small steps. In 1983 the analogue instruments gave way to a green LCD display and the headlights became combined units. In 1984 the interior was redesigned, 8x15-inch wheels with 215/50 Pirelli tyres arrived and the suspension was lowered by 20 mm. The 1985 facelift brought a sloping grille and a revised dashboard, and in 1988 the LCD turned orange.

The biggest technical change came in 1987. The early cars had manually locking differentials, and engaging the locks also switched off the anti-lock brakes. A Torsen centre differential then replaced the manual lock and split torque automatically. Autocar measured a 60/40 front-to-rear weight distribution, and evo's testers still describe the car as nose-heavy, with understeer when driven too fast into a corner.

Driving impressions

evo's testers drove both the 10-valve and the 20-valve car decades after they were new. The 10-valve, wrote Peter Tomalin, is "not bonkers fast, but it's fast enough to be fun", as long as the engine stays on boost. Its steering feels slow until the car settles. The 20-valve felt bigger and heavier than he expected and less tightly controlled, yet it "still feels quick across the ground". The weak points evo lists are a dead feel to the brakes, very weak dipped headlights and catalytic converters that dulled the 20-valve's exhaust note.

Sport quattro and the S1 E2: the short-wheelbase cars

For Group B Audi homologated the Sport quattro in 1984. Its wheelbase was 320 mm shorter and its body used carbon fibre and Kevlar. The all-aluminium 2,133 cc engine had about 224 kW (304 PS) in series form, according to auto motor und sport. Wikipedia counts 224 short-wheelbase cars, offered at DM 203,850 each when the car was homologated in 1984 (about €104,000 at the fixed conversion rate). auto motor und sport puts the total at 212, of which 164 were road cars. evo gives the road car 0–62 mph in 4.8 seconds.

The S1 E2 of late 1985 was the final evolution. It had large wings, weighed 1,090 kg, and its 2,110 cc engine was officially rated at 353 kW (480 PS). Walter Röhrl and Christian Geistdörfer won the 1985 Sanremo Rally with it. Today the road cars are rare collector's items: in March 2019 a 1984 Sport quattro sold at Gooding for US$434,000, about €386,200 according to auto motor und sport. The Group B era also produced the Porsche 959, another four-wheel-drive car developed for the class.

Rally record: from the Jänner Rallye to Pikes Peak

The Quattro started its first event at the Jänner Rallye in Austria in 1981. Later that year Michèle Mouton became the first woman to win a world championship rally. Audi won the makes' title in 1982, finished second in 1983 and won again in 1984.

The A2 version alone won eight world rallies in 1983 and 1984. The short Sport quattro then went to Pikes Peak in Colorado. Mouton won the hill climb in 1985 with a record time, and Röhrl won it in 1987.

Legacy: a name for all-wheel drive

The Quattro proved that permanent four-wheel drive could work in a fast road car. Its name became Audi's label for all-wheel drive across the range, written in lower case as quattro. Its base, the Audi 80, and the company's later models are covered in our history of Audi.

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