The Audi Sport quattro is still a powerful highway cruiser today | Articles

Wait, What?

This car may look like an ordinary Audi quattro, but it isn’t. Look closely, and you’ll notice some pretty major differences, starting with the 12.6-inch-shorter wheelbase.

Under the hood, you’ll find a giant turbo that boosts the twin-cam 2133cc engine to 302 horsepower. The back seats are laughably small, the body is full of panels made from carbon-Kevlar, and the windshield sits at a steeper angle than a standard quattro’s–reportedly to reduce glare for the driver.

Audi’s Gamble

If all this sounds like a dumb idea on Audi’s part, well, it probably was. To understand why a car like this was let anywhere near dealership showrooms, you first have to understand why it was built. The short answer: to win races.

Rally racing experienced a revolution in the early 1980s, when four-wheel drive finally got the FIA’s blessing just as turbocharging systems became fully developed. Audi took thorough advantage of this in 1981, entering its standard quattro (known as the Ur-quattro, or “original quattro”) in the World Rally Championship.

Over the next few years, that original quattro–Audi says not to capitalize that word, by the way–put together an impressive string of victories, including two world championships and two second-place finishes. Its only real competition was the Lancia Stratos, but the Stratos could only best the quattro on dry pavement–something WRC stages usually lack.

By 1984, though, the scene was in flux again: New rules threatened the quattro’s dominance. Group B, the infamous rally arena that stole drivers’ lives and fans’ hearts, had arrived, and with it came lighter, faster, more extreme rally cars. The FIA set a…