Key Points
- The Audi Quattro’s AWD innovation transformed both the company and the luxury car market.
- Audacious Automotive is restomodding the rare Ur-Quattro with a wide-body and powerful V8.
- The project targets 600 hp with a supercharged V8 and manual transmission.
Fire up the Quattro
Audi would be a totally different company today if it weren’t for the Quattro. While its motorsports legacy is always brought up, the car also showed that putting all-wheel drive in regular road cars is a viable option. If you look at the market today. A good chunk of premium and luxury sedans today offer all-wheel drive.
Jörg Bensinger’s curiosity led to the eventual creation of the Quattro. Noticing how well the Volkswagen Iltis performed in the snow, the chassis engineer reckoned it might offer several advantages for passenger cars. Boy, what he said was right, and it changed the automotive landscape forever.
Restomodding a Rarity
One thing you should know about the Ur-Quattro is that it’s relatively rare. Just 11,452 were ever built, and the thought of hacking one up for a restomod sounds, frankly, a bit sacriligious.
Still, that didn’t stop the folks from Audacious Automotive from doing just that. Its plan is to give it a wide body that would make an IMSA race car proud, and stick a mighty V8 under the hood. Yes, we can see you wince a little, but we reckon this has all the potential to be an epic build.
The build isn’t done yet, but progress is coming along rather nicely. So far, the body has been dipped and stripped, and those wide front fenders have been test-fitted. The rear quarter panels have received that wide-body treatment, and it wouldn’t look out of place on a World Rally stage.
But the heart of it all is a B7 RS4-derived 4.2-liter V8. Sure, the engine from the original Audi V8, the more power is always merrier. While the straight-five from an RS3 would bring this restomod closer to its roots, Audacious Automotive founder Mac Zaglewski told Autocar his reasons for going with V8 power.
For starters, going for the five-cylinder meant it would come with a Haldex all-wheel drive system, which the Ur-Quattro did not have. A Haldex system would’ve changed the car’s driving characteristics, too, and limited it to automatic-only.
The original Quattro had a 2.1-liter, five-cylinder turbo engine that was good for 197 hp, although U.S. versions were kneecapped to just 160 hp. Later Euro-spec models got the upgraded 20-valve engines, bumping power up to 220 hp.
In contrast, the B7 RS4’s 4.2-liter V8 had 414 hp, more than double that of the old five-cylinder turbo. But that engine will be tuned even further because, well, why not? Zaglewski and his team are targeting somewhere in the region of 600 hp, and that’s thanks in part to a supercharger. The best part? It’ll be mated to a manual transmission. It’ll come straight from the RS4 donor car, and it’s another reason the firm opted for the V8.
Obviously, the build won’t please everyone, but we can’t deny that it’s a cool one.
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