Sometimes when opportunity knocks, you need to answer the door. If you haven’t been following the trends of all of the mid-80s metal on its way up the charts, pretty much every single one of our favorite cars has quickly been appreciating over the past year or two; many upwards of 100%. I’ve called it the “E30 effect”; I’m not sure if I coined that phrase or I picked it up somewhere – I don’t think so, but lack of sleep and a screaming two year old blur the lines time to time. But regardless, I don’t really think it was the M3 that started this all – I blame the early 911 trends from about two years ago. Suddenly those 911s crested and blasted past $100,000, and enthusiasts looked towards the next fun, race-bred and good looking transportation; the E30 M3 was a natural choice. Because of M3 appreciation, suddenly everything around the M3 is being pulled up, too – the 944 Turbo, the M5, M6 and 500E, and of course, the Quattro. But as I’ve covered previously, finding a good, clean and well sorted example with reasonable miles can be exceedingly difficult. Audis woes in the late 1980s and early 1990s meant that many examples fell into disrepair; at one point a few years ago, I was even offered a Quattro for free if I could take it away. Opportunity knocked, and I didn’t answer the door – though it’s a long story and you can blame General Motors for that one. In any event, today on Ebay a barn-find, low mile and all original Quattro has popped up and once again there’s a knocking at the door:
