Car of the Week: This Rare Audi Could Fetch Close to $800,000 at Auction

Although founded in 1909, Audi became the marque we know today only in the late 1960s with the launch of the model 100, a tidy sedan that set the stage for even more ambitious engineering developments. Audi soon became a brand known to German-car enthusiasts who appreciated forward-thinking design, one of the first of which was Audi’s Quattro, introduced in 1980 as a turbocharged coupé featuring permanent four-wheel drive through a center differential. It became an instant success, and spun off a version built for rally competition that put the automaker in the motorsport limelight.

The Sport Quattro Coupé was a “homologation special,” quickly identified by a wheelbase that was 12 inches shorter (less than 87 inches in total) than the Quattro coupé, with a different floor pan, transmission, and independent rear suspension. The weight savings and handling advantages gained were further enhanced by a 2.1-liter, turbocharged five-cylinder engine with a DOHC, 20-valve head, bumping output to about to 473 hp when tuned for racing.

Additional weight savings came from Kevlar front fenders, roof, and front valance. Complementing the newfangled all-wheel-drive configuration were ABS brakes, a huge technological advance at the time and used in practically every vehicle made today. Its performance kept pace with just about any car made in 1985, covering zero to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds and topping out at 160 mph. But the Sport Quattro was for experienced drivers: massive turbo lag brought power on suddenly, quite a handful in such a short, lightweight car.

Competing in the then-hot (and short-lived) international Group B World Rally Championship, open to highly modified GT cars meeting minimum homologation numbers, Audi was victorious in the Manufacturer’s Championship in both 1982 and 1984, and the Driver’s Championship in 1983 and 1984 (won by Hannu Mikkola and Stig Blomqvist, respectively). Not just demonstrating proof of concept for the all-wheel-drive platform in a grueling rally setting, the Sport Quattro featured sure-footed capabilities that were quickly adapted to the company’s passenger cars.

Compared to the nearly 11,000 examples of the Quattro production car, built from 1980 through 1988, only 214 examples of the Sport Quattro were built from 1985 through 1986, fulfilling Group B homologation requirements for 200 units in road-legal specification. Of these, Audi Motorsport reserved 20 for its program, sold 20 to privateer teams, and the remainder were offered on the market at about $80,000 each.

Today, the Audi Sport Quattro is a top-tier collectible, and one comes to the Bonhams Goodwood Revival sale, in England, on September 7. Acquired by the consignor in 1994, it has been under the stewardship of only one prior owner and shows about 65,000 km (about 40,000 miles) on the odometer.

Finished in Tornado Red (as were 128 of the cars), its black-and-gray interior is equipped with factory harness seat belts, and the white rally wheels are shod with original factory-specification Michelins. According to the consignor, the paint has never required attention and is all original. A fully stamped service book records maintenance carried out from 1985 up to the most recent major service this year. This highly collectible, rally-focused Audi is estimated to fetch as much as $780,000.

Click below for more photos of this 1985 Audi Sport Quattro Coupé.