The street version of the Audi quattro was a huge hit with performance car enthusiasts. But it was an even bigger hit on the rally circuit.
The First Rally Quattros
The first Audi quattro rally car made its appearance in 1981, with a 300bhp engine, debuting at that year's Janner Rally, the Austrian round of the European Championship. It was an immediate success, winning three World Rally Championships, including the first ever to be won by a female driver, Michèle Mouton, in 1981.
The quattro driven by Arne Hertz and Hannu Mikkola in the 1985 Hong Kong - Beijing Rally at the British National Motor Museum at Beaulieu
The following year, the car won the constructors championship and in 1983, it clinched the driver's championship for Hannu Mikkola, but 1984 would be the car's most successful rallying year, thanks to the introduction of a whole new breed of quattro.
The Audi Sport quattro
While the quattro was one of the fastest rally cars of its day and the four-wheel-drive gave it excellent roadholding, it proved to be somewhat heavy and the monocoque chassis meant that its competitors, the Lancia 037 and Peugeot 205 T16, which had both been built from scratch to comply with the World Rally Championship's Group B Rules.
Group B had been introduced by the FIA in 1982. It allowed manufacturers far freer reign to make use of technology and design than had previously been permitted, required just 200 cars of each type to be produced for homologation and placed no restrictions on turbocharging. As such, the cars built specifically for Group B were some of the most powerful in rallying history, and some of the furthest-removed from their mass-production equivalents. Audi's new Group B car for 1984 was the Sport quattro.
The Sport quattro in action with Walter Röhrl in 1985
To take advantage of these fairly loose rules with the Sport quattro, Audi shortened the car's wheelbase by 32 centimetres to improve the handling, fitted the car with a six-speed gearbox and a 2133cc engine that produced some 444bhp in its initial version. The windscreen was borrowed from the Audi 80 as drivers had complained about distracting reflections in the standard screen, and the 80's was steeper. As Group B allowed high-tech construction materials to be used, the car's body was made of carbon-kevlar. To fulfil homologation requirements, a total of 224 Sport quattros were built, with roadgoing cars offered for sale at an eye-watering price of around DM204,000 - around four times the cost of a regular roadgoing quattro.
A roadgoing Audi Sport quattro
The Sport quattro made the Lancia and Peugeot teams sit up and take notice - even more so when the original car was superseded at the end of 1984 by the Sport quattro S1, which had a new version of the 5-cylinder engine that was slightly smaller in capacity at 2110cc, but which was turbocharged to now produce some 500bhp. The car also gained a new rear wing and front spoiler - necessary given that the vehicle now weighted just over 1000kg and had a 0-60mph time of around three seconds.
The S1 Sport quattro, with added rear wing and front chin spoiler
Walter Röhrl won the 1985 San Remo Rally in an S1, and a final version, the S1 evolution appeared. But time was running out for the Group B cars, and the WRC pulled the plug on them all in 1986, by which time the S1 evolution was one of the most powerful vehicles in its class, the final version producing some 590-odd bhp. Even today, it is still one of the most powerful rally cars ever to compete. It's combination of power, handling and roadholding ability also took it to victory at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb three times, in 1985 (with Michèle Mouton at the wheel again), 1986 (driven by Bobby Unser Sr.) and 1987 (for longtime Audi driver Walter Röhrl).
Next Week: Modern luxury on and off road with the A5 & Q7
Issue 7: Rallying 80's Style with the Group B Sport quattros
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