Audi Ur quattro drive review. 40 years after launch, is the original the best quattro of all?

welcome to a new Harry's garage video and today's car is the Audi Quattro 10 valve the original you are Quattro that was lost almost 40 years to the day now March the 4th 1980 this car the wraps came off it at the Geneva Motor Show and the world couldn't believe this car it really revolutionized road cars and obviously rally cars the whole sort of landscape change for performance car when this car arrived you've hopefully you've already watched I did it I've got over in this corner we've got the Audi Sport quattro which was the group B version of the Quattro this video is all going to be about the original you are quattro 10 valve versions car that I know quite well because in 2005 at Evo I actually took one across to Geneva to celebrate 25 years of Quattro and I can't believe now we're at 40 years of Quattro now Ferdinand Pierre was involved the mastermind at VW Porsche infamous for Porsche nine one seven esocast he looked at Audi how was Audi going to compete with the straight six cylinders of BMW and its motorsport heritage and miss sadie is also had a straight-6 and they were durable what was Audi gonna be he decided it's gonna be a technical tour de force and he'd already introduced the five cylinder engine in the Quattro in the Audi hundred and there was a two hung out he two hundred as well that had the turbocharger but they were front-wheel drive longitudinal engines and in 1980 was a bit of a joke because he if he it was wet when the turbo started pumping he all he got was wheel spin then the Quattro arrived and that all changed and what a third pair had spotted was world rallying had allowed four-wheel drive in 1979 they'd been working behind the scenes the engineers chassis engineer had spotted their little VW Zi this that perform particularly well in snow and rather than trying to make an off-road road car let's make a rally performance car that had four-wheel traction that would be a in a proper weapon for rallying and also performance cars were these turbot it's big dumper tour so there you go that's the background I've dug out an old car magazine here this is August 1982 and if you look at they did this very famous the good bad and ugly enlisted cars but they do soon cars and they do coup phase but at that time four-wheel drives there they are they were just in a little column here and there's a Mercedes G Wagon the Jeep regon a diet soup that they weren't performance cars but John they loved the Audi and if I turn to the listing for the Audi Quattro some up through its sheer ability and loveliness of its feel and character the nicest car we've ever driven that's quite a statement for a you know very important title car magazine in phrases I was in in 1982 okay with that little background let's go and have a closer look this car is one of the very first that came to the UK went on sale in the UK in March 1981 and this arrived a few months off to that you can tell it's an early car because it has those four headlights at the front they soon sort of tidied up them and had a single headlight but this is I just loved the look of this four headlight on this car and what made Quattro instantly recognisable above a regular dat was these boxed arches the designer Martin Smith came up with the idea and I think they're just the best way to do a civil wing extension with em so it's obviously on e30 m3 and other cars like that integrality was another one it's just such a neat way of extending the wings out rather than having sort of an eyebrow wing extension and it was it was just bizarre that this was a foil foil drive performance car before would even thought about it we had to wait was it 219 94 before we actually saw that Porsche Turbo gay four-wheel drive this was so early compared integrally the four-wheel drive Delta that was late ages this is 1981 there was nothing on the scene like their original LD Quattro arrived it was fourteen and a half thousand pounds which puts it almost dead on the money of a Range Rover same sort of prices a Range Rover BMW two wheel drive sort of six series of something like that were about 17,000 or thereabout so it was it was quite well priced it was expensive but for what it offers well it was quite something when out he was planning the car it was basically a homologation special and the marketing department thought we won't sell very many of these they'll worry they wouldn't even hit the 400 required for the homologation so they suggested 300 engineers felt differently and they quietly geared up thinking this is actually going to sell quite a few cars and they were right and they all ders tumbled in and they were soon up to sort 1,500 2,000 orders after Geneva show well it's a lot heavier than it is on the sport Quattro this is obviously steel and what it reveals is this this is the five cylinder engine that Audi had come up with and I think it has all the hallmarks of further ampere because it was the only five cylinder engine in production at the time I think it was the first five cylinder straight five and they decided an Audi that they were going to have front-wheel drive on their cars to begin with outtie hundred etc but obviously needed four wheel drive and a trouble with that with having the gearbox there and then having longer to knurl the engine sticks out right the front if they had a six cylinder car well the front would be this much out and you'd also have even more weight sort of the wrong side of the front wheels thinking was where you have all the way to the front they get traction things but they did a 4-cylinder they didn't have the refinement so the compromise with this five cylinder unit that came unique to IOT became quite a selling point because it had the refinement of his six and supposedly the economy of a four cylinder not quite sure that's true and then you see here they added the turbo fuel injection in 1980 as well was relatively new the radiator because of the length of the engine had to sit at the side here but the really clever bit was because it was all in a line gearboxes they're doing the rear drive out of the back of the gearbox to the rear wheels was easy ish if you're an engineer most four-wheel drives up to this point had a sort of transfer gearbox here and then a shaft coming up and then a diff saw here that then went out and it was a heavier solution this was much cleverer think of this car like a Porsche 911 but in Reverse so this is like looking at the Porsche 911 engine this end then a gearbox and then a chef going up to the four-wheel drive very clever very Audi very third and out here and obviously from then on this was how how D produced its performance road cars four-wheel drive engine overhanging it goes right the way forward to rs4 rs6 to the present days that's what Quattro that was the magic that Quattro introduced to the motoring world then you get a usable interior on the you are Quattro proper rear seats in it I will have a look at this when we were outside but the velour upholstery really comfortable it was lovely on that trip to Geneva 15 inch wheels on this car that was what you had in 1980-81 205 tires and the back yeah you've got a usable boot with the lovely the sort of clean rubber spoiler Quattro script first time we've seen that always were lower case Q sub editors of magazines are very pedantic on that one and there you are a usable boot you've got a fuel tank is here got a spare wheel legit stuff so a really nice car Oh rear wiper and washer fluid there so there we go that's the Quattro now let's take it outside and see what magic it can deliver on the road well has just like a sport Quattro if you're used to Golf GTI the period this is the same look the velour I'm left of the law because it's such a soft feel when you set off it's just a really nice seat covering cracks into life simple gaze layout just a boost fuel tank and speedo and rip counter all you need standard heater slider controls but I have got electric windows I didn't get on my sport Quattro and I've got electric mirrors as well so all mod cons right I'm gonna warm up head out the village and you join me a little bit later on some better roads again when you get in here it's you know you're driving a car from 1981 first thing you it strikes you it's the amount of gloss I can see out these tongue about narrow pillars the glass is lower the windscreen is closer visibility is fantastic in this hip in this car and there is the warble you can just sense the warble he Sue's he put away with a 5 cylinder sound so distinctive I mean it's not really loud like that works cars in sort of going around killed a forest or anything but it's definitely there the five cylinder thrum of that straight five engine then other things you notice where it's a one or two rattles this is quite hard plastic this is what you used in the day you hear that glovebox it's like a like the sort of same sort of plastic they used to make cassette cases out of up here as well but the scenes a sort comfy and warm positing the steering power steering on here level covered rim and it's just simple slider controls with heaters and obviously the diff lock down there this is a really early car and they became you magically controlled yet and pull out they look like a choke on this one they're actually little leavers down by the hand brake and then mechanically you pull this abroad I suppose or cable goes to each diff but the back and in the center really clever stuff but yeah nice nice feel with the moment this is a subsidized example to say soldier chap in Scotland really early on in Quattro production and has done seventy five thousand miles since new there's a very livable cars and I remember the first time Quattro really hit me I'd read about it and back in early 80s I was actually a grain buyer and used to go around the agricultural shows and I went to so we call the tame show and it it was held in September and it had been raining and there was a bit of mud around the shone round and it was flat and there was tractors sort of delivering things this is before they're so opened and then every now they need to see a you know Series three Land Rover or someone who defender type cars and then this red Quatro came past me in the mud in no way will you drive a normal car there perhaps it in no chance Quattro pootle passed in the mud and it was a shocking moment couldn't believe this 140 miles an hour coupe a at just drill I'm in my wellies yes it was flat and it was owned by a quite successful machinery agriculture machinery dealer in the area and he had a courtroom you always had caught race and just to see it on but his so grin yeah it was cars don't do that former scars with turbos and everything don't do that sort of thing and it really brought it home how different Quattro was to any other car on the road yeah does its best work sort of me drains in the and we're just going to squirt it up this hill you think I'll chamber I'll just change it down to second and then you can just hear it here we are 30 miles an hour go past the dealer 3000 rpm it sort of gets a bit flashy over five and a half but just use that tool and off you go lovely type gearbox on this thing I have to say just a nice level performers I think the poor was his seven seconds to 60 I think our music 7.1 wasn't it I think it's declared that's the advantage of that over States almost its acceleration because of the four-wheel drive you could go off the line well they were quite short gear to gain these curls but it's about 19 20 seconds to a hundred which is the measure I use what speed it gets to a hundred either I was talking to an owner had one of these in period and he basically said no I was when I drove the quartiles I was probably quicker in the wet than I was in the dry it was truly astonishing and it's wet weather performances so inspiring because you never was weary of the really rear wheel drive BMWs they did have a habit of stepping out and we weren't used to it that was just one of the things they did sir Jagger the same and the Quattro you could put their power down and it was a talk rich performance as well because of that turbo so it really felt quite quick turbocharged in the game in 1981 there was a handful of companies doing it BMW obviously did the 2002 that was actually mid 70s it was out of induction I think it said 75 or 76 turn obviously the 911 turbo was there Renault had that Renault 5 turbo mid-engine crazy machine Saab with a 99 and then Lotus in 1980 came with the Esprit turbo and that was probably the pick of the bunch we look back the turbo response because they they still were running carburetors in that short run so to have turbo written on your car was a sign that wow you're in something really new high-tech named to have the four-wheel drive they were to exploit that performance while that was what Quattro really offered again I'm going down this road this is a bumpy road those taller tires breaking their sort of car this is such a nice car the cover distance E and that's what made them so popular the flick you're gonna drive something on road and he wanted a little bit of traction and you had a choice of Range Rover or Quattro well Quattro sort of won and it was tempting people out of cars like 911 it had the usability and this sort of cross-country capability I think was just a really nice car to be early cars like this were left-hand Drive early only through the UK market we had to put up with it and then the - went digital as well which was a strange thing to do rather than the analog we've got these so high-tech digital - and the final iteration was well they all introduced at 20 valve back 1987 and it had talked differential in the center you missed out the manual control of the locking deal what I haven't mentioned is the weight of this car because I put it on the scales is that you'd normally do they think it's a full c2 car five cylinder engine for your drive and it was twelve eighty five kilos on my scales with a full tank of fuel remarkable how they can package before the major safety tech came in how like they could make a car like this that's what it feels like for behind the wheel you do feel the lack of mass that 200 olds power over delivers on performance because of it you know chuckles gave anyway these days isn't really but it when he only got 12 80 kilos plus vomity bloke in his 60s sittin in it whirring it's fine the performance the anus got all that suspension travel for cars in spirit not quite as much as a sport Quattro strangely spring breaks feel about the same breaks our lease or bussy well they're very much yes so well summarize in this car what one it's hard to believe it's 40 years on I could quite happily live with this car on a subdued regular journeys it was that far ahead of its time I think when it came out its introduced a completely different usability to performance cars in all conditions 12 months of the year didn't matter what the members do you take the cuatro I mean I can't get over the simplicity of it now looking back and the quality of the masses etc but as a dry machine it's terrific and the steering's lovely as well the simplicity of a regular hydraulic rack snare Irish tyres just very easy a little bit of understeer as we go around I've got that mid-range boobs that's pumping harder to 9,000 rpm really nice through there 220-pound wouldn't talk is it to 250 dude busy airs not a huge man a grip but easy to play wow I don't know it's lovely revisiting these cars and other I was explaining that the 20 valve what what the 25 felt to me it just feel a little bit more hunkered down than this but the character of the engine had slightly gone they fitted a smaller turbo catalysts had come in by 1990 and although it's quicker response didn't have the character of the two early 10-round I was going to choose between having a cuatro if I can have a cuatro tuck away I'd be very tempted by the 10 valve while more than 20 valve even though the 20 valve is basically on paper a better car I think the character of the original Quattro is what I would enjoy if I wanted the revisit it's just yeah it stands for so much inhale DS history and it stood the test of time and it's set a healthy as a differentiated amongst all other brands so a critical car and it's if you can understand why the true enthusiasts recognize this car and they sold eleven half the housing of them in all rather than the four hundred the marketing department said they were seventy three hundred so yeah I hope that's given you a little insight into the Quatro what made it such a defining car for Audi and also for performance cars around the world we have we enjoyed this video we'll keep watching keep subscribing because a bit more videos coming along very soon

Channel: Harry's garage

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Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 01 2020