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Tag: B5

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2001 Audi RS4 Avant

I’m always curious as to what the right-hand drive “discount” is. The reality is that unless you live in one of the 75 countries (I bet that is more than you thought) that utilizes right-hand drive vehicles, owning one is a real value killer. I know this first hand as I have a right-hand drive vehicle in my small collection and while it is fun driving it, I know that compared to an identical left-hand drive example, the value is less. I think that even holds true on some of the more desirable models and that seems to be the case with today’s car.

This 2001 Audi RS4 Avant up for sale in London is one of the 500 or so produced in right-hand drive specification. To be honest, unless you live in the UK, Japan, South Africa, Australia, or New Zealand, owning this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. (Those 70 or so countries are not places you’d want to own an RS4 Avant.) However, this is a right-hand-drive car in a right-hand-drive country. Why is it so much less expensive?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2001 Audi RS4 Avant at Duke of London

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2001 Audi RS4 Avant

The B5 Audi RS4 Avant was my first realistic dream car. Back when I was 18 years old, I scratched together all $10,000 I made over multiple summers washing cars and cutting grass and a bought a 1998.5 (that half year is important) Audi A4 1.8t. I loved that thing. I had it for nearly nine years and the whole time I owned it, the RS4 was the forbidden fruit. Back then, you had to get by with some grainy videos on YouTube and totally legally download episodes of Clarkson’s Top 100 Cars where he tested this car. I even remember ordering the OEM RS4 grille from Suncoast Porsche and installing it, sans badge of course. Now, we are almost knocking on the door of them finally legal for 25 year import if you don’t want to spend a ton of money for a car that is already federalized.

Today, we have my favorite colors that I looked at a few years ago, Goodwood Green. Although when you look closely at this one, you can see something a little different. That being the steering wheel on the other side. Why I am featuring a right-hand-drive UK car? A very good reason. Price.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2001 Audi RS4 Avant at eBay.Co.UK

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1997 Audi A4 2.8 quattro

Emerging from the sales slump brought on by the recession and actual fake news, Audi solidified its position in the small executive luxury market with its brand new A4 model in 1996. While in truth the car heavily borrowed from the evolution of the B3/4 series and started life with the same flaccid 12 valve V6 that had replaced the sonorous 7A inline-5 for 1993, the A4 was exactly the model Audi needed to redefine its image.

And redefine it did, going from near zero to hero in just a year’s time.

Car and Driver
immediately named the A4 one of its “10 Best” cars, a position it would repeat in 1997 and 1998. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the perennial favorite as the BMW 3-series was for the magazine, but still, that it was mentioned in the same breath was impressive. New sheetmetal was smooth and tight, full of great angles and well-placed curves. The bumper covers were finally integrated well again – something the U.S. specification B4 had inexplicably failed miserably at. Inside was evolution rather than revolution, but the cabin looked and felt upscale and modern. And the market responded to this instant hit; consider, in 1994 Audi sold 12,575 cars in total. In 1996, some 15,288 of just the A4 models were sold. That was before the many variations and improvements Audi rolled out in the B5, too.

Seemingly every year new changes offered refreshment and redesign to the A4. In late 1995 and 1996, you could only get one specification – the 2.8 either with or without quattro. But ’97 saw the introduction of the 1.8T, and the Sport Package got some revisions as well with new Ronal ‘Swing’ 16″ wheels. Today’s Laser Red example has to be one of the better examples out there:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1997 Audi A4 2.8 quattro on eBay

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2000 Audi A4 1.8T quattro Avant

Even though for me the B5 chassis A4 was the beginning of the dilution of the Audi brand, I admit I have always had a soft spot for nice examples. And the first A4 had plenty of things to celebrate. First off, it effectively saved and resurrected the brand in the U.S. from near extinction; consider for a moment Audi sold a total of 18,124 cars in 1995, the same year that the A4 was introduced as a 1996. By 1997, Audi sold 16,333 of just the A4 quattro model alone. As a success, that subsequently meant that there were a plethora of options to be had in the new chassis as production opened up. Soon we had the 1.8T turbo model joining the V6, the V6 was soon revised to have 30 valves, there was a light refresh in ’98 as well and another in ’01, the Avant joined the lineup for ’98, and of course we got a new S4 in 2000.

Considering that for some time there had only been one way per a year to get the small chassis in quattro form, this relatively dizzying array of chassis configurations meant that there are still quite a few nice ones out there to be had. Today finding clean examples is getting hard, and they’re heading up in price:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2000 Audi A4 1.8T quattro Avant on eBay

5 Comments

2001 Audi RS4 Avant

My first real car was a B5 Audi A4 1.8t, which means everything related to the B5 RS4 was “it.” That was the holy grail and everything the B5 chassis aspired to be. It had all the little special touches and had just enough differences that made it far from just a B5 S4 Avant with more power. Even more, you are waiting until 2025 to even see one in the US outside of a few rare examples that made their way in. This was the car. Even now that these cars are 20 years-old, the want is still there and the prices reflect that. Today’s example, a 2001 finished in Goodwood Green, is checking all the boxes for me. Just four more years, right?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2001 Audi RS4 Avant at House of Cars

3 Comments