Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
After lingering and reappearing for some time at a nearly $7,000 asking price, the seller of this “beater” S6 has finally compromised and the car is now offered at no reserve. Our readers previously suggested it was a $3,500 car – bidding is currently around $3,000 with two days to go. How much will this winter weapon end up at?
If you walked up to a stranger on the street and said “would you buy a 1991 Audi with 227,000 miles for $6,000”, I’d guess nearly every response would be a hearty laugh. But then, if you asked the same question but instead of the Audi and $6,000 it was a 1970s Porsche and a million dollars, you’d probably get the same laugh. Car valuations are so difficult, because within them lies desirability, condition, and sometimes childhood dreams. I still remember the James Bond movie where the baddie-turned-goodie-but-still-baddie was whisked away from the border guards tucked in the back of a 1991 Audi 200 20V quattro. I was, at the time, a teenager and didn’t really have much of an idea what the 200 was at that point. When I finally bought my Audi, I understood a bit more – it was a luxury sedan with the heart of a World Rally champion, a car whose dual nature few could manage at the time. High speed Autobahn cruiser? Check. Quiet, civilized luxury car? Yes, that too. Spirited on back roads? That could be said about the 200, but so could it about the BMW M5. What set the Audi apart at that time was the combination of the turbocharged engine with the quattro all-wheel drive system, allowing this performance to occur in just about any condition. That made the quattro a ski-trip vehicle as well. With handsome looks, the lightly flared 200 was also a racer, competing in the North American IMSA series as doing quite well for such a large, production based car. While not quite the jack of all trades, one can appreciate what a special package the Audi 200 20V was, and still is:
Recently I’ve written up a few tasty European market S6 quattros, but what’s available on this side of the pond? Well, even though the used market is a little different here than it is in Europe, there are still several great options in you’re into the C4 chassis and its legendary 2.2 20V turbocharged motor. Today I’ve got three examples of one of the more rare colors to see on the C4 – silver, and two with grey leather. Which will be the one you’d like? Let’s start with the oldest:
It was just a few days ago that we saw the last Audi C4 grace these pages, that time a Emerald Green S6. That car sure looked quite nice but was a little suspect given the lack of information regarding maintenance and was certainly well overpriced. Most of these sleeper super sedans fall in the $3,000 to $6,000 range, and while they’re not spring chickens they offer a tremendous amount of performance for that investment. Considering what that amount buys you in the Audi 4000 market these days, these S4 and S6 sedans are a downright bargain. If you’re willing to forgo looking for a low mileage example that is 100% pristine and instead focus on a solid driver that has been maintained, there are even more options that are affordable than just about any competition. Today’s first year 1992 S4 is no exception to this rule, with a strong history of recent maintenance and a desirable 01E S4 6-speed swapped in place of the original 5-speed:
Ever see a car ad and think “Well, they obviously don’t want to sell the car”? We see them a lot; from “feelers” to regular advertisements with ludicrous pricing, there are is no end to advertisements that make it apparent that the seller isn’t in a hurry to move the car. Jalopnik recently wrote up a WRX ad that was one such example – the husband agreed to put the car up for sale to get a SUV when the family expanded. Of course, he didn’t say he was going to sell the car, just that it would be put up for sale – which he did, at a little over double the current market rate. Clever. In any event, we do see some of these ads come up from time to time that it’s apparent that the seller either thinks they have something really, really special or are just not looking to sell the car. Such is the case with today’s 1995 Audi S6; it certainly looks splendid in Emerald Green Mica and has a clean looking Ecru interior, but at well over double the going rate for a 1995 S6 sedan, is the seller hoping it won’t move? Let’s take a look: