The story of the Audi quattro, the beginning of a successful lineage

The Audi quattro is one of the most acclaimed and respected models in automotive history, and it turns 40 years old, which is why we are going to review its successful history

It was in 1980 that the brand with the rings brought the Audi quattro to the Geneva Motor Show. We are not talking about just any model, and forty years later it can be considered one of the great revolutions within the Ingolstadt manufacturer.

In fact, the technology debuted by this fascinating Coupé has already spread to practically the entire current range of the brand, having been tested on models such as the Audi S6 or the Audi e-tron. In the 40 years this technology has been around, no fewer than 10.5 million cars with quattro four-wheel drive have been sold and, during the past year, nearly half of the cars sold by the brand featured this system.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Audi quattro, we are going to tell you its entire story, because it is undoubtedly one of those cult cars that any four-wheel enthusiast would keep in the garage if they could.

The history of the Audi quattro was born thanks to a military vehicle

The idea of installing this transmission concept, at that time reserved for trucks and off-road vehicles, arose in the winter of 1976. Tests were being carried out on the Volkswagen Iltis that would be assigned to the German army in Scandinavia.

At the same time, Audi was developing a sports vehicle using as its base the Audi 80, which had under its hood the five-cylinder turbo engine that powered the Audi 200. The traction capability of the military vehicle led the brand’s engineers to consider using this drive system in their sports car.

In this way, during the spring of 1977 the project 262 got underway with Walter Treser in charge. It was not until early 1978 that the first experimental prototype, equipped with a basic system of solid axles, was seen.

With this, it impressed everyone in the first tests carried out in the Austrian Alps. In fact, two conclusions could be drawn, one positive and one negative: the good part was that all-wheel drive was far superior to the others on slippery surfaces. On the other hand, the negative part was that it subjected the transmission to very high torsional loads when taking tight bends on dry surfaces.

The quattro all-wheel-drive system was not easy to install

For this reason, the project managers saw the need to develop this technology to make it more compact and lighter, additionally adding a central differential –don’t miss the report where we explain how a limited-slip differential works-. To solve the size and weight problems caused by adding a transmission designed for off-road vehicles, the engineers resorted to an arrangement of concentric hollow shafts.

The primary shaft was responsible for distributing the power from the central differential to the front, passing through the interior of the secondary shaft, which in turn was hollow and carried the power from the gearbox to the central differential. Thanks to this, the size of the gearbox could be practically the same as that of a front-wheel-drive vehicle.

The three differentials worked freely, so to ensure that the power transmission was ideal in any situation, the driver had controls on the center console with which they could lock the central and rear differentials.

And the Audi quattro was born

With this layout, the production Audi quattro was born in 1980, a variant of the Audi Coupé with permanent all-wheel drive and a supercharged engine that set the standard for good dynamic behavior.

Under its hood it had a five-cylinder engine of 2,144 cc powered by a turbocharger blowing at 0.85 bar. With this, it produced 200 CV of power, so it could accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 7.1 seconds and reached a top speed of 220 km/h, figures that are very good even by today’s standards.

The Audi quattro reached German dealerships with a sales price of 49,900 marks, which at the exchange rate would be just over 25,500 euros. It also had good standard equipment, including sports seats, fog lights and alloy wheels.

In 1983 the brand presented the Audi Sport quattro at the Frankfurt Motor Show, an evolution of the standard Audi quattro to maintain the competition stardom that the first version had achieved.

214 units of its evolution to homologate the wild Group B

To be admitted to the brutal and now-extinct Group B of the World Rally Championship, the regulations stipulated that a minimum of 200 units had to be built in series, limiting the engine displacement to 2,133 cc.

The brand’s engineers got to work, so they shortened the wheelbase and developed a new version of the five-cylinder engine that already produced 306 CV of power. With this figure, it became the brand’s first supercar and the most powerful series-production car manufactured in Germany, earning the nickname “Shorty” for its shorter length.

The brand ended up producing 214 units of the Audi Sport quattro and they were put on sale for a price of 200,000 marks, that is, just over 100,000 euros. Today it has become a highly sought-after model among collectors, and its price at auctions already approaches half a million euros.

The Audi quattro became a rally legend

Audi entered the world of rallying in 1978, although at that time it could only field front-wheel-drive models. The World Rally Championship regulations prohibited the use of all-wheel-drive vehicles and the brand with the rings had not yet developed the Audi quattro.

However, the German Federation, driven by the eagerness Audi had to demonstrate what its creation was capable of, requested authorization from the FIA for this type of vehicle to be allowed to compete.

The FIA ended up approving this decree in its regulations, so the Audi quattro began to forge its legend at the 1981 Monte Carlo Rally with Hannu Mikkola at the wheel. The Monegasque roads were covered in snow, so the brand’s car felt at home, taking the first timed stages. However, its youth cost it dearly and, due to a problem with the alternator, it had to retire from the event.

It took just one year to win the manufacturers’ championship

It did not take long to redeem itself, and in the next event, the Rally Sweden, it managed to take the victory. In 1982, Audi already won the World Manufacturers’ Championship and in 1984 they achieved the double, taking both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles.

It was in 1984 that the model evolved into the Sport quattro which, thanks to the 214 road-going units produced, achieved a good number of successes thanks to its short wheelbase. In 1985 it went a step further with the Audi Sport quattro S1, which already had 476 CV for a package that barely weighed 1,090 kilograms, allowing it to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.1 seconds.

This last version was the one that took it to the Olympus of competition cars thanks to its victory in one of the most important events in the world: the Pikes Peak hill climb in Colorado, with none other than Walter Röhrl at the wheel.