Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
It is not hugely surprising that the RWB 993 was a bit polarizing; understandable given the now near cult-status of the 993 and the extreme crafting of the body. Today I have a different modified 993 to look at; this time, instead of a Carrera 2 we’re looking at a 911 Turbo that has been externally modified to look like a Ruf but it’s no poser with a claimed 659 rear wheel horsepower. Is this sacrilegious too, or are the modifications just right here?
Since new, the Volkswagen Corrado has been the object of desire of many a VW enthusiast – each with a long list of modifications that they’d perform. When the price began to drop on used examples, those dreams started turning to reality and a few years on, we now regularly see these modified Corrados pop up for sale. Some of them are really done well even if a bit over the top like the supercharged 1992 I wrote up last Spring; others are intriguing but probably would be more valuable if they had remained stock such as the 1992 I looked at last Fall. Nevertheless, in the world of tuned Volkswagens there don’t seem to be any more proud owners of these modified sport coupes and another tuned example – this time turbocharged – has popped up for sale:
Entering the world of historic racing in general is not something that can be terribly easily achieved, but when you start talking about historic Porsches the dollar signs start increasing rapidly. To race a historic 956 or 962, for example, one reputable Porsche shop quoted me on the order of $5,000 – $6,000 an hour once you factor in crew, tires, brakes, race fuel and rebuilds. That, of course, doesn’t include the purchase price of the car which can easily exceed a million dollars – even for a non-winning chassis. Okay, so not everyone races Group C cars, but even 911s, 912s and 914-6s can be expensive to run competitively – and are increasingly expensive to purchase. One way to step a bit outside of the normal Porsche mold, then, is to look for the many privateer special race cars that were built in the 1960s, such as this DKW/Porsche hybrid “TM Special”:
Volkswagen Rabbits have recently entered the mainstream collector car world, and the result is great if you’re a Mk.1 fan. That’s because the increase in value has finally resulted in examples where restoration can be justified from not only a love of the car standpoint, but from an economic standpoint as well. Previously, restored examples seldom came to market because most people had put some much time and money into the car that selling it would result in them being ridiculously upside down when the transaction was completed. However with good examples of the GTi fetching towards $20,000 in some cases and nearly $10,000 Rabbits, some nicely presented and well built cars are coming to market:
In 1989, Audi was in a state of crisis in the U.S.. The 60 Minutes farce had caused them serious market share from the European import scene. Audi had always been a bit fringe with its expensive and seemingly underpowered turbocharged all-wheel drive executive sedans. Aside from that, the major competition had stepped up their game; BMW launched the quite attractive and popular E32 the year before, and upstarts Infinity from Nissan with their Q45 and Lexus from Toyota with what would become the standard – the LS400 – were entering the marketplace. While the BMW remained with its standard inline-6 rear-drive configuration in most E32s sold, the Japanese duo upped the game with powerful quad-cam aluminum V8s under the hood. In the case of the Lexus, Toyota steered towards refinement with adequate power – Nissan, on the other hand, pushed the performance level with a reported 280 horsepower cap on the 4.5 liter VH54DE engine which today many report as underrated by at least 30 horsepower. Audi had its work cutout to claw back market share against these new cars, and to answer it released an updated version of the venerable Type 44/C3 chassis. Now, truth told the Audi 100 (5000 U.S.) really was the basis for the design of most of the large executive sedans that followed – but five years after its introduction, being the first was no longer enough. Audi upped the game by introducing what effectively was two Volkswagen 16Vs mated to each other in the same way that the 944 engine was effectively half of a 928 V8. The new V8 was all-aluminum and featured double-overhead cams. It was small – twice the displacement of the Volkswagen 16V engine at the time at 3.6 liters, but produced about the same power as the 4.0 liter Lexus motor. New too was the transmission in the now named “V8 quattro”, with a 4-speed automatic gearbox coupled to all four wheels through a rear Torsen differential and a multi-plate clutch center differential. The automatic was necessary to compete with the crowd that was buying these large executive sedans, as was the upgraded interior with a new dashboard, more sound deadening and more electronics. Of course, if you still wanted to shift gears yourself, Audi offered what many consider to be one of the best on-the-fly all-wheel drive setups ever to make it to the road; the 5-speed V8 quattro featured a center and rear Torsen differential. Less than 100 made it to U.S. shores in 3.6 form only, making these complicated executive sedans sought out by Audi enthusiasts across the country: