Press "Enter" to skip to content

Tag: Audi

This site contains Ebay partner affiliate links, which may earn us a commission at no additional cost to you.

2003 Audi S6 Avant

I stopped by my long-time mechanic’s just the other day to discuss some suspension repairs to the Subaru. This particular mechanic – Duarte de Costa at D&F Motorsports in Providence, Rhode Island – has been serving our family now for the best part of twenty years. He even came to my wedding. As our editor Paul said, “That’s when you know you’re into a guy deep!” To be honest, I wasn’t surprised that there was a family car there – Duarte bought my parent’s Allroad when they had enough of the repairs. But also on the lift was my father’s 1989 Porsche 944 Turbo with a headgasket failure. Parked sadly underneath it, though, was the Allroad, complete with collapsed suspension once again. By my count, it’s the fifth time in ten years that the suspension has had to be serviced. But it’s not alone; drive around Providence and you’ll see any number of Allroads bouncing around on blown airbags. It’s become so rare to see a nice one around here, you almost forget that they’re really pretty good looking cars. What’s inescapable for many, though, are the expensive repairs to keep the twin-turbocharged V6 and the active air suspension going. What’s the solution for a good looking Allroad then? Ditch both of those things and get the even more potent S6 Avant:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2003 Audi S6 Avant on eBay

10 Comments

Redefining “Beater” – 1995 Audi S6 – REVISIT

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?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1995 Audi S6 on eBay

The below post originally appeared on our site September 15, 2014:

11 Comments

1991 Audi V8 quattro 5-speed

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:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1991 Audi V8 quattro 5-speed on motorgeek

7 Comments

1990 Audi 90 quattro 20V

My first car was an Audi 4000CS quattro. It was a wonderful car; for the most part, outside some serious fanboys no one knew what it was. That was in part because in the early 1990s Audi nearly was removed from the U.S. market thanks to some bad P.R. that has been pretty well documented. However, that wasn’t all – if you looked at the 4000CS quattro or its successors on paper, they weren’t very appealing to sporting drivers or to luxury-oriented buyers. BMW and Mercedes-Benz ruled those small executive markets, and the robust but semi-anemic 2.2 inline-5 coupled with a relatively spartan interior had a hard time competing with the other German marques. On top of that, if you wanted a performance model from the Volkswagen Audi group, The Volkswagen Jetta GLi offered many of the same accoutrements as the 4000 quattro – plus more performance – for much less money, and looked pretty similar in many ways. You had to specifically want the all-wheel drive system to select the 4000 quattro, and that meant slow sales. In the 1980s, a loaded Audi 4000 would cost you nearly $21,000 – the equivalent of around $46,000 today. For reference, that amount very nearly gets you into a brand new S4 today – and I assure you, the S4 is in nearly every way a much more impressive car.

To solve this problem in the 90 range, Audi went even more upscale. Audi offered a more luxurious cabin, full of wood accents, power accessories and even more sound-deadening material. The 90 was more aerodynamic, meaning that the heavy wind noise associated with the brick-on-brick B2 design was lessened. The 90 also introduced innovative safety measures, such as the seatbelt pretension PROCON-10 system and anti-lock brakes which previously had been considered superfluous on all-wheel drive cars by Audi. The all-wheel drive system was changed, as well – now with a Torsen center differential and an electronic locking rear differential instead of the vacuum operated locks on the first generation quattro. But the main upgrades to the 90 came in 1990, when the quattro received its first real engine upgrade in the form of the 7A double overhead cam 20 valve motor. With 164 horsepower on tap and a 7,200 rpm redline, the Audi product finally matched the competition’s power on paper. Unfortunately, the weight of the luxury items meant it still wasn’t a particularly fast car off the line – but on the fly, the 20V was a quite capable car. But, as you’d expect, the price had gone up; walk into a dealership in 1990, and you’d have to fork over around $27,000 to get into one of these 90s. Add some options – such as power seats and Pearlesant White Metallic paint, and you were really breaking the bank. Very, very few of these sedans were sold originally; much less than even its rare Coupe brother – making them a rare sight. However, those that have owned and driven them always speak of what an impressive car Audi made – and this example is one of the most impressive available today:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1990 Audi 90 quattro 20V on Craigslist

3 Comments

Reader Ride Success Story: D2 Desires

Over the years, we’ve gained a lot of fans here at GCFSB, some of whom are specialty dealerships focuses on the cars we know and love. One such dealer is Sun Valley Auto Club in Idaho, whose inventory is always chock full of interesting finds. Our reader, Max, over at Sun Valley Auto Club recently purchased a 2002 Audi S8 that we featured last year. He was kind enough to check in with us and share his enthusiasm for this Audi and his buying experience.

509

9 Comments