Well, here it is – my first car. Okay, mine was a 1986, but it too was Alpine White with Brazil Brown velour. For all intents and purposes, the opening photo for this advertisement could be the same as the one I bought back in 1995. It was a pretty popular color combination on the Type 85 quattro. Coming from a family with European cars but never an Audi, the technology was intriguing. And, being 18 when I bought it, I did all sorts of stupid stuff with that technology. Locking the diffs on the highway? Yup, I did that a few times, because light up indicators on the switchable differential board were the talk of my friends. I also redlined the car pretty much every chance I got. On my first drive, with the car not even registered, I crested 100 mph. Fall soon turned to winter, and I turned into Hannu Mikkola, sideways as every – and I mean every – opportunity. It was a particularly snowy winter in New England from 1995-6, and my work lot was covered in a solid layer of slushy ice. Every morning I’d arrive, get onto the ice, cut the wheel hard and pirouette in a 270 degree slide into my parking spot. I drove through one memorable blizzard from Westerly to Hartford and back in the high speed lane the entire way, only dipping below 65 when someone lost control in front of me. One time I challenged my lifted Jeep-owning friend to see who could make it through 2 feet of snow. By this time, my CSQ was lowered on Eibach springs, but even though the snow was up to the headlights, it didn’t stop. The Jeep? It got stuck. I’d like to think that all of this was because this was I was a driving God, but the reality was that the survival of my 4000CS quattro – and, more importantly, me – came down to how robustly that B2 was built.
