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Tag: 20V turbo

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Feature Listing: 1991 Audi 200 20V quattro Avant

1991 was a great year for Audi and Volkswagen enthusiasts in America, robust with performance options all around. Fans of normally aspirated motors had multiple double-cam choices; the 16V twins from Volkswagen with the GTI/GLIs, each with heavily bolstered Recaros and awesome BBS wheels. Going slightly less boy racer and more upscale yielded the equally impressive 20V inline-5 duo from Audi, with the Coupe Quattro and 90 20V quattro. They weren’t as quick off the line, but they were certainly well built, solid performing luxury vehicles. Of course, the big daddy of normal aspiration in the lineup was the V8 quattro. Still at 3.6 liters and 240 horsepower for 1991, it was also available with a manual transmission and was in the midst of a winning streak in the DTM series, usurping power from the E30 M3 and 190E 2.5-16 in monumental style.

If forced induction was more your choice for speed, there were plenty of options there, as well. 1991 featured a slightly revised Corrado, now also with BBS wheels and the 1.8 liter G-lader supercharged motor. Audi offered you a luxury cruiser still in the 200 Turbo, as well. But the big news was finally the release of the 20V Turbo motor into the lineup. Long featured in the Sport Quattro, then RR Quattro in Europe and later S2, in America Audi brought the 3B turbocharged inline-5 package in the 200. As an added bonus, it was available in both sedan form and the innovative Avant wagon. Producing 217 horsepower and a bit more torque, the Audi was capable of 0-60 runs in the mid-6 second range if you were quick with your shifts. But this wasn’t a bracket racer – the 200 was a luxury car through and through, with a well-appointed cabin full of the things you’d expect – Zebrano wood trim, electric powered and heated leather seats front and rear, and a high-quality Bose stereo. Unusual for a luxury car of the time, but underscoring the German’s feelings towards driving, were the number of driver-oriented items. The dash was full of gauges, and unlike the V8 and 200 Turbo, the 20V was manual-only. Next to the shift lever was the manual rear differential lock, though as with all the second generation quattro drivetrains, the electronic lock disengaged at 15 m.p.h. automatically. The center differential was a Torsen unit capable of varying power as well. And the brakes were unconventional floating-rotor designs, intended to help haul the heavy 200 down from triple-digit Autobahn speed with ease. Unlike the normal 200, the fenders on the 20V were flared slightly to accommodate BBS forged wheels, 15×7.5″ all around and shared with the V8 quattro. It sounded like a recipe for success, and was a well regarded car when new even if the unconventional manual/turbo-5 setup lacked some grunt compared to the V8s of the day.

Yet this was still the fallout period of both the recession of the 1990s and Audi’s fall from grace in the U.S. market, so the 200 was a slow seller. On top of that, the C3 was at the very end of its life cycle, replaced mid-1991 with the C4 chassis. As a result, very few of the 200 20V quattros were built; Audi claims 4,767 sedans and a scant 1,616 Avants were produced with the 3B motor. Of those, only about 900 sedans made it to America. But the number you care about? Well, this 1991 200 20V quattro Avant is one of the 149 originally imported here.

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1983 Audi Quattro

Contrary to popular belief, most of the elements of the Quattro were not pioneering. It was not the first production car with all four wheel driven – that distinction goes to the Jensen FF, which beat the Audi to market with a luxury 4WD GT by a full 15 years. It was not the first car to introduce turbo technology, as many manufacturers had been playing with forced induction for some time. Notably, some of the team that developed the Quattro came from the halls of Porsche, having worked on projects like the 924 Turbo previously. Even the signature box flares were borrowed from the Group 5 cars that raced in the 1970s. But the Quattro was the first to put all of these elements together and set the blueprint for what would become a fairly standard hot package going forward. The Ford Escort Cosworth, Lancia Delta Integrale, Subaru Impreza 22B, and Golf Rallye are but a few of the many that copied Audi’s trendsetter. And while some that followed were dynamically better than the Audi, it still has a mystique somehow greater than the both the sum of its parts and its inherently flawed design:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1983 Audi Quattro on eBay

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1995.5 Audi S6 Avant

Why does Audi no longer offer this package? They’ve got the technology, certainly, with a stellar inline-5 in the new 2.5 liter turbocharged unit featured in the RS3 (and previously in the TT RS). They even still offer a manual in the S4, and though the company refuses to bring it here in anything other than allroad form they still make an Avant version. So why not combine them? They’d make an instant fan favorite, as all of the S4 and S6 Avants have been highly sought both when new and as second or third hand used cars. In the likely absence of that ever occurring, today’s example is a great representation of what many consider to be the highlight of the both Audi’s engineering and the most desirable package outside of perhaps the original Quattro:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1995.5 Audi S6 Avant on eBay

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Double Take: 1993 Audi S4

Yesterday, we posted a throwback video to the 1992 Audi S4 review by the television show Motorweek. For me, it was interesting to watch as they went through both the highlights and some of the faults of the now legendary car. One thing they mentioned towards the end really struck me; the original run of 250 1992 units had completely sold out, and they were taking orders for 1993. Mind you, this was at a time where Audi nearly pulled out of the market; to me, this makes the success of the C4 chassis all the more poignant. If the A4 revitalized Audi, it was really the C4 in its varying guises that kept both the fire ignited amongst enthusiasts and simultaneously kept Audi’s small foothold in the marketplace – in particular, the C4 A6 2.8 Avant was a particularly successful and popular car. But today we’re talking about the model everyone really wants, the S4; following up on my Sprint Blue double post from yesterday, here’s a pair of 1993 S4s in Audi’s signature color until the end of the 20V run; Pearlescent White Metallic. It adorned nearly every variant of quattro from the original right through the S8, but it’s most notable between the 5000CS quattro, 200 20V models and the S4. Which of these pearls would you take home?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1993 Audi S4 on Craigslist

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Tuner Tuesday Ersatz S2: 1990 Audi Coupe Quattro S2 Replica

For some time, if you wanted to go fast in a two-door Audi in the U.S., you had to make your own car from pieces of others. Even if you selected the much praised Quattro, you had a fairly heavy car to start with that was coupled to a rather measly 160 horsepower. Unless it’s snowing, a bone stock Ford Fiesta ST will pretty thoroughly stomp all over the legendary boxflared wonder in just about every situation. So people began modifying the turbocharged cars to produce more boost and bring them into line with their European counterparts. Of course, when it came to the replacement for the Quattro, those that waited longingly from 1985 until 1989 for the next turbocharged coupe were greatly disappointed. Sure, the new 90-based B3 Coupe Quattro had 20 valves under the hood – but no turbo came here. Europeans enjoyed several iterations of the turbocharged B3 and B4, including the Porsche tuned RS2, but in North America only the normally aspirated, slightly portly 2-door hatch came here. Again, it was no surprise that as soon as they were outside of warranty, people began to tinker; in this case, making their own S2s out of pieces from their bigger brother 200/S4s. Installing the 20V Turbo into the engine bay instantly transformed the Coupe Quattro from competent cruiser to sleeper assassin:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1990 Audi Coupe Quattro on eBay

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