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From YourSITE.com Reviews & Road Tests Amongst Audiphiles (those enthusiasts most rabid for the Audi brand), there is perhaps no more whispered-about production car, no holier than holy than the legendary Sport quattro. The vaunted Audi and king of the original coupes was built as a homologation special. Basically, Ingolstadt had to build at least 200 of these cars in order to campaign them in Group B rallying according to FIA rules of the day. Further, it was important that Audi make a strong bid to make their all-wheel drive racer more than competitive with the mid-engine cars of the day being campaigned by their competitors, much to the delight of an expected 200 owners who could pony up the cash for such a super rare car. Driving such an exclusive and legendary Audi is generally the stuff of fantasy, so when Audi Tradition placed this pristine red example in front of us at a recent winter test drive event in Italy, the eyes popped out of the head and the tongue hit the floor. Who were we to argue?
Designed by English Audi stylist Peter Birtwhistle, functionality was a big factor in his approach, allowing for greater airflow through the redesigned grillework with more compact light assemblies and additional intakes in the front bumper for further flow to the radiator and oil cooler mounted behind it. Wider blistered fender flairs were needed to cover the car’s stock 15x9 Ronal wheels that were shod from the factory with 225/50 VR Michelin rubber. Single air intakes ahead of the rear wheels were reminiscent of earlier long-wheelbase competition Quattros and helped cool the rear brakes.
To note, and for eagle-eyed readers ready to point out our test car wasn’t wearing its Ronals, the Sport quattro had significantly thinner wheels with significantly thinner snow tires. Given the time of year and the environment, Audi Tradition was less than enthused about sending the car out where it might encounter some snow on such aggressive meat. The tire choice was less than optimum, but we’ll take what we can get… giddily. Perhaps the most recognizable change in the Sport quattro from the long wheelbase ur Quattro is a shortened wheelbase of 320mm, done so in order to make the rally cars more agile in tight turns. The shortening helped the front to rear weight differential as well, resulting in a 55/45 front/rear bias.
An added benefit of the shortened wheelbase was a lowering of weight. Audi took extra care in making the Sport quattro as light as possible, employing state of the art technologies at the time such as Kevlar, fiberglass, carbon fiber and other composites wherever it was possible. Much of the body on the Sport quattro was made of fiberglass, except for the shorter steel doors borrowed from the Audi 80 sedan. The net result was increased strength and roughly 300-kg less weight compared to a long-wheelbase ur-Quattro - total vehicle weight was a light 2862-lb. Also from the 80 sedan came the windshield and less aggressively raked A-pillars, rumored to have been due to complaints by the Audi works drivers of the time, though use of the sedan’s front doors could just as easily have been the deciding factor for this.
Under the vented fiberglass hood resides a double overhead cam 20-valve cross-flow version of Audi’s stalwart 5-cylinder engine design, though with an alloy block – a 51-lb. savings over the cast iron version. This was the first Audi 5-cylinder to employ 4-valves per cylinder or a cross-flow design. Mated to this updated engine is a sizable KKK-K27 turbo, Bosch LH Jetronic injection and Langerrer & Reich intercooler, as was found in earlier Quattro race cars. Running a compression ratio of 8:1, the engine pumped out 306-bhp at 6700 rpm in the road going versions of the car like our test vehicle, though full rally-spec cars were known for more like 600-bhp. Torque was a healthy 258 lb-ft, and peaked at 3700 rpm. All told, the Sport quattro rates in at nearly 143-bhp per liter, a very exclusive club by today’s standards, much less that of 1985. Engine displacement was dropped from 2144cc to 2133cc so that the car could compete in the 3-liter rallying class – turbocharged cars being subjected to a 1.4 multiplication factor in an effort to balance out the benefit of forced induction versus normal aspiration. Factoring that, the Sport quattro had a theoretical capacity of 2986cc.
Interestingly, Group B rallying rules stipulated at the time that manufacturers could not change the production exhaust system, so when Audi set about designing the Sport quattro, the manifold was designed with the 450-hp of the competition car in mind and not the 306-hp figure of the road car. Unlike competition versions of the Sport quattro with their dry sump competition lubrication system, road-going homologation units such as our test car came with a wet sump system instead. Performance figures reported in 1983 were 0-60 mph in 4.9 seconds, a number that is still quite impressive today. Even with the brick-like aerodynamics of the Sport quattro, the top speed was reported as 155 mph and limited by gearing more than anything else. Brakes were up-rated to four-piston calipers mated to vented, slotted rotors all around, while the emergency brake employed its own caliper. ABS for the first time was standard, though was disabled when the quattro system’s differential locks were engaged. It could also be deactivated by the driver through the push of a button. Audi bolstered the suspension through the employment of additional track control arms to support the wishbones.
Inside the car, a driver is greeted by attractive 80s vintage Recaro seats swathed in leather with a suede-like central seating surface. Leather continues on the door panels as well. Unlike the “turbo” branded steering wheel in the Quattro, the Sport quattro is branded with the Audi four-ring logo like the 80 sedan. Gauges are analog like the 80 and 90 quattro of the time (4000 here in the United States), though the car’s unique dashboard features a longer instrument array moulded into its profile that houses water temperature, oil temperature and oil pressure gauges. Where the standard 80s, 90s and 4000s featured water temperature gauges between the speedometer and tachometer, the Sport quattro instead has a boost gauge located between its 300 km (186 mph) speedometer and 9000 rpm tachometer. Other switches are a mix, with later model switch gear used in some cases and earlier model switches in others, as is the case with the older push/pull pneumatic differential lock knob.
Like the unique dashboard, the Sport quattro also utilizes a subtly different center console. A modular design was fitted, slightly changing component positioning from the Quattro – an overall more handsome and functional look that other B2 quattro owners can only salivate over given the super rarity of any of these parts. The Sport quattro was sold as a 2+2, though the back seat of today's TT coupe looks spacious in comparison. Not only is there no foot room for a rear passenger, but the rear bench also seems to be about half as short as is typical in the long-wheelbase cars.
Rumors suggest Audi began development of the short-wheelbase coupes as early as 1981. Eagle-eyed journalists visiting Audi’s Ingolstadt facility spotted what looked like a short-wheelbase car under a cover in the latter part of ’81 according to Jeremy Walton as he wrote in his extremely detailed but now out of print book Quattro, The Development and Competition History. Also in the book, Audi driver Hannu Mikkola admitted to Walton in an interview on the Audi stand at the ’83 Frankfurt IAA (where the car was first shown), that he’d been testing in the car as much as a year earlier in ’82, though he was unable to test a 20-valve version of the car until the day after the Frankfurt unveiling, according to Walton. Reports say that 214 of the cars were built over the years (according to The Audi Quattro Book by Dave Pollard). Production began in 1984, and according to Pollard’s book, chassis numbers SQ85EA905 006 to SQ85EA905 024 were used as ‘in house” experimental cars while numbers SQ85EA905 101 to SQ85EA905 120 were used by Audi Sport for testing. Also, according to Pollard, the last of the Sport quattros produced back then came out of the factory in 1987. 200 were required to be built according to homologation rules, and while Audi went beyond that number by 14 cars in the total number built, only 175 were sold to private owners after all was said and done. Most of the Sport Quattros built were red like our example from the Audi Tradition collection – 128 of the short production were reported to have been this color. White was second most popular accounting for 128, while a few more were either blue (21) or green (15). Black is the rarest color, accounting for just two of these special cars, one of which was reportedly sold to Audi Sport driver Walter Rohrl.
Sliding into the Sport quattro, I have the characteristic devil on one shoulder and angel on the other. The little red horned guy is whispering to me to cut loose and pull a Walter Rohrl around the roads near San Cassiano. The annoying little robed guy with the halo talks me down though. Audi wouldn’t like a second (yes second) cracked up Sport quattro, and innocent European skiers/tourists trudging across the road at any given ski slope parking lot, seemingly placed along any sizable straight, really wouldn’t like to get intimate with the pedestrian collision capabilities of the car. Still, this is a Sport quattro and the scarlet one holding the pitchfork has to get some say. In a straight line, the car feels a bit more nervous than the long-wheelbase Quattro, though it’s also much more agile as we hit the tight mountain switchbacks of the Alpine region of Italy. Back in the day, rallies like Corsica had such tight turns that the long-wheelbase car had to back-up, and perform a three-point turn or worse. With the short-wheelbase Sport quattro, Audi was able to greatly minimize the need to do that. Shift action on this over 20-year old transmission seems vague and takes some getting used to, especially when compared to some of Audi's latest offerings. Prior to the Sport quattro, we’d stepped out of a new A3 2.0T quattro, with crisp 2005-spec manual gearbox. The difference is telling, and really shows just how good new cars have gotten. Torque on the Sport quattro comes on fairly low, around 3000 rpm. However, the real punch comes on around 4000 and we’re told keeps going on up to redline. This being an older car with a big turbo, it’s no surprise that lag is quite evident with the car, further adding to the “punch” feel. Spoiled by today’s quickly spooling small turbos with immediate low-range grunt and more akin to the feel of big displacement, the waiting game of this older engine takes some getting used to – though once it kicks, it really kicks.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” my more evil inner self yells into my ear as I go full throttle down a short straight, taking a punch of power before the good half is pulling my foot reluctantly from the accelerator pedal. With snow tires on these relatively short straight sections of road, the Sport quattro tracked fairly well, though with production-correct wheels and rubber combined with the short wheelbase, we’d imagine there’s probably a tendency to tramline. Reports at the time from magazines like Autocar in the UK report that the car become impressively stable at nosebleed speeds, but we were never really given a chance to verify that as the only straights near these small ski villages were graced with the entrances to ski resorts that are positively littered with European tourists shuffling across the way in their ski boots. I bet Mouton and Rohrl never had to deal with this. Come to think of it, European rally fans are known to be certifiably nuts in their need to get right up on the rally cars. Rumors from the Group B days suggest finding an errant and dislodged finger stuck inside an air inlet wasn’t all that uncommon. Maybe I am the one who has it easy, though the want to make use of the power at my fingertips is overwhelming. Perhaps our environment was so excruciatingly devoid of long unencumbered straights by design. A fine example of such a rare car like this red example from Audi Tradition is something the fine folks from Audi’s historical department would certainly prefer not get taken to its well documented stratospheric limits by a bunch of starry-eyed journalists.
I push hard, or at least what I feel to be hard, driving a non-ESP car worth six figures into a turn and induce some understeer as the snow tires ineffectively scratch at the salt-covered tarmac. I’m remembering that a second green Sport quattro had been on hand for drives as well up until the wave of European journalists ahead of us, when a French lifestyle writer managed to knock that car out of commission. I didn’t want to be the one to take the remaining Sport quattro (or any Sport quattro for that matter) out of the running, so I attempt the impossible - reigning in my enthusiasm and trying my best not to pretend I'm some sort of Mikkola protege. Angel:1, Devil:0. Too bad! When you look back on it, the significance of the Sport quattro is quite considerable. Aside from the ultra-exclusive production numbers, the car was a technology leader for Audi and helped them further establish all-wheel drive as a credible and important technology in the luxury and performance car market, a standard that has held through today and long beyond the short-lived Group B rallying program. Audi’s move toward luxury and the change in demographic of the rallying form of motorsport spelled the end of Audi’s dominant role in the globetrotting sport that has today evolved into the WRC, though the company still maintains a strong presence in motorsport and still campaigns all-wheel drive where the “unfair advantage” that is quattro hasn’t been altogether banned. Homologation specials seem to have dropped off with the loosening of motorsport regulations around the world in that regard, a sad case for automotive enthusiasts. That’s something this enthusiast sorely wishes the FIA would reconsider, even if it does create more headaches for the manufacturers. Sport quattros today remain the stuff of legend. Some have been imported to the United States and turn up at high-end events like the 1999 Monterey Historic Automobile Races and the Audi Club of North America national meets. Most are kept in nicely insulated garages as part of collections around the world, and prices still go into six figures for these special coupes. It’s rare that journalists still get the chance to drive them, and for that we’re most appreciative to Audi and the Audi Tradition personnel who were generous enough to pull the car out of their collection to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of quattro. Having tasted it, one word comes to mind. Divine.
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