Röhrling Thunder - The Sport quattro
The year is 1987 Rick Astley had just released “Never going to give you up” and the racing community was in a state of shock, still coming to terms with the demise of Group B but Audi was sending the sport quattro out in what would be its swan song in a rather colourful motorsport career up one of the most dangerous events in the world to achieve maximum surface ceiling in a race to the clouds, being the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (pack your dust masks and parachutes just in case). The captain of this fighter jet, Walter Röhrl. It was the last time the world would bear witness to what would be the ultimate iteration of the Sport quattro, the car that inspired so many.
Rewind that cassette tape of the quattro soundtrack (*bites fist) seven years earlier where Group 4 rallying sees a certain rule change. A rule change that would flip the rally hierarchy and motoring, in general, on its head by allowing four-wheel drive. Whilst dismissed by the community which, until that time, mainly fielded rear-wheel drive models like the Lancia Stratos, Fiat 131 Abarth, Datsun Violet GT, Opel Ascon 400, Sunbeam Lotus and Ford Escort RS1800. Bear in mind the BDA motor of the escort, one of the greatest sounding engines, had a cult following of its own and which would reduce grown men to tears. There was also the Lancia Stratos, a mid-engined space framed structure, borrowing a transversely mounted V6 from the Ferrari Dino. (RIP Enzo) That’s just to give some indication as to the cream of the rallying crop that the quattro would sour in an effort that bordered desecration.
Whilst largely overlooked by the motorsport crowd with that typical sizeist mentality associated to motorsport, it body-shamed the four-wheel drive sporting concept after citing the Jensen Interceptor FF as the comparison, saying that four-wheel drive would be and I’m paraphrasing here, “Too Heavy”. Jörg Bensinger and some other smart dudes over at Ingolstadt saw the gap and married up opportunity after seeing the Volkswagen Iltis in operation up in the Swiss Alps, with their road car at the time, the Audi 80. The result…the Audi Ur Quattro. (‘Ur’ being German for Original) It won on its first time out, sending the competition back to the drawing board with frown lines the length and shape of a special stage on the Jänner rally and hands tightly cupped to board members for an increase in research and development spend and a vivid imagination of what could be. They were going to need it.
Two years later and thanks to another change in Rally rules (We know the authorities love their rules) ushering in the new Group B era, in steps a bigger turbo, engine bumped up to a 2.1 Litre, a larger intercooler and 10 more valves as well as a 320 mm shorter wheelbase to improve upon it’s pivoting abilities despite to the alleged dismay of drivers like Stig Blomqvist and some Kevlar/fibreglass panels and we have the Audi Sport Quattro to improve on an already formidable package now with a 51/49% weight distribution. What’s fascinating to understand is that the Sport Quattro was essentially a road car turned rally car which then went on to be homologated into a more potent package whilst essentially still honouring that road heritage, keeping things pure. Audi wanted it like that. That linear scaling up mentality that symbolised the 80s which we adored. This event in itself proved to be a watershed moment in Audi’s history establishing the brand as a performance-orientated outfit, lifting the public profile to atmospheric heights.
The road version of the Sport quattro was quick even by today’s standards. The type of quick that would make you smile nervously with teeth grinding. 0-100 km/h in 4.8 seconds and a top speed of 250km/h, quicker than the Porsche 911(930) Turbo of the time. This all while using internal cabin bits like the indicator and wiper stalks from the original Golf GTi (Read about my feature on the Mk1 GTi here).Earlier versions of the quattro used a mechanical differential before the ever-popular and intelligent Torsen differential came into the frame ensuring evenly spread application of power from those five fire breathing cylinders. It’s debatable around the exact numbers but approximately 214 had been built, 20 for competition and the remaining for sale to the general public, if you could afford one of course.
The penultimate dice roll of the Sport quattro E2 that ventured up the dusty climbs of Pikes Peak in 1987 was the ultimate version and boasted 560 kW, used the unique 6-speed saxonmat clutch as well as an anti-lag system. Way ahead of its time. It was the first car to get up the climb with Röhrl at the wheel in under 11 minutes beating out a group of vastly improved Peugeot 205 T16s and the extremely capable ace, Ari Vatanen. Respect was paid and the racing deity smiled upon the Sport quattro one last time in a fitting farewell party.
Despite the uphill battle seeing the Sport quattro package eventually stretched beyond its capabilities coming up against the out and out monsters created by Peugeot, Ford and MG, the first-to-the-party quattro is the one we all remember and revere as the poster car of Rallying. It’s almost as if winning anything throughout its tenure never really mattered. The revolution was completed and quattro had branded motoring and would never be the same again all thanks to that one day out in the Swiss Alps and the Volkswagen Iltis. The recipe and originality sent the quattro into legendary status, paving the way in success for Audi and giving a gift to the world being competitive four-wheel driving. Those four rings all working together to push both car and brand into the next chapter. Long may the quattro live in the history books and our hearts, living true to the brand's slogan of Vorsprung durch Technik.
