ICONS
AUDI SPORT QUATTRO
Words Andrea Albertazzi / Photos Audi
Let’s face it, despite everything that’s happening around these days, it’s a great time to be in love with cars. Enough to settle us halfway between those that have written the most important chapters in history, but at the same time able to benefit from the constant technological and performance progress that just ten years ago seemed unthinkable. For once, you don’t have to choose where to line up, whether on the side of those rough widowmakers ready to break your neck once the turbo pressure comes into play, or prefer the maximum development of the new hybrid units, which try in every way to prepare for a possible extinction of internal combustion engines by making immediate delivery coexist with politically correct consumption and emissions. In this unscrupulous war that at least for the moment knows neither winners nor losers, we have learned to appreciate even more the heroes of a not too distant past, those improper weapons disguised as sports cars that continue to make people dream and that have carved out a special place in the automobile book.
I’m talking about models that have achieved the realization of a design grandeur that risked everything on the basis of a simple intuition – something unfortunately light years away from the contemporary business concept – the same that have made motorsport great, in particular the world of rally, where the cars lined up were often strictly derived from the street legal you could have bought the next day at your trusted dealer. This category has always been the ultimate meeting point that would allow an ordinary motorist to feel like a hero once at the wheel of his car. Among the great protagonists and in the wake of our recent test behind the wheel of the extraordinary RS Q3 Sportback, we can’t help but immediately think of the legendary Audi Sport quattro, with the suffix “quattro” purposely written in lower case. Yes, things have changed, but it still remains the undisputed queen of the four rings.
It was 1976 and from a crazy idea of a handful of German engineers, the development of the VW Iltis off-road vehicle for the army would somehow lead to the birth of one of the most legendary hot-hatches ever. Based on the humble platform of the Audi 80 and with parts borrowed from its cousin, the VW Golf Mark I, the Audi quattro was unveiled at the 1980 Geneva motor show, but only a few years later and addressing the need to build a minimum of 200 specimens regularly registered for road use, the Sport quattro reaches the maximum evolution and was ready to be deployed in the world rally championship, more precisely in the infamous Group B, the lions’ den that knew no limits concerning budget, power and like history told the world, not even about danger.
The Sport quattro did not hide its speed-focused attitude, thanks to a shortened and widened body featuring huge wheel arches, but still maintaining those two characteristics that made it immortal, namely the four-wheel drive with 3 differentials that managed the power of a phenomenal inline turbocharged 5-cylinder, a 2.1-liter boasting 300 horsepower (+100 compared to the first incarnation of the quattro), always ready to scream and which once exceeded 3,500 rpm would have outlined the perfect combination of adrenaline and speed. Traction on both axles made it possible to harness pure power and significantly increase cornering grip, a situation in which the Sport quattro excelled over its more demanding rivals, while the 370 Nm of torque were like a real explosion, impossible to get used to.
The reality is that the Sport quattro, expensive and rare as it was – in fact it cost 200,000 German marks – was perfectly usable in a context that was anything but hectic like that of a special stage full of hairpin bends. It retained the onboard comfort of a four-seater coupe and the ability to tackle snow-covered roads was a plus that still consecrates it among the most important sports hatchback in history. Of course its possible use is more than relegated to special occasions, with a current value at around 400,000 Euros, but the fact remains that the Audi Sport quattro is the daughter of a gamble, an idea and above all the desire to revolutionize motoring and competitions, taking home not only important successes, but the awareness of having marked history indelibly.
The Audi Sport quattro is the absolute tribute to all-wheel drive, now widely used even on the smallest models in the range and obviously on SUVs, a system that is constantly developed and which provides numerous driving modes that are useful in tackling unpaved or snowy terrain or simply offering greater safety at the wheel, but what brings a tear in a world where emissions are necessarily put before the pleasure of driving is its in-line 5 cylinder screamer with a timbre that leaves no room for doubt: it wants to be pulled by the neck and the Sport quattro has been able to do it like pretty well, enhancing that particular trigger of the cylinders that praise a mad love for speed, a feeling born from desire and curves hunger.