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1987 Audi Coupe GT

1987 Audi Coupe GT

Published June 13, 2017 by Carter

Edit 7/2/2017: This car has dropped to a $3,000 Buy It Now

The 1987 Audi Coupe GT is an interesting bird. Well, to be more precise, 1986 and 1987 Audi Coupes were a mixed bag and there are always little details that are interesting to see. In 1986, Audi offered the Commemorative Design model Coupe GT, which offered no performance upgrades but was a neat looker with unique red leather interiors. One of the other items the GT had which the 4000CS quattro Commemorative Design didn’t was a digital dashboard. The lower center panel, which normally had three VDO gauges, instead held a VDO electronic display with only oil temperature and a voltmeter. There was no oil pressure gauge. Where the normal dash held analog gauges, instead the Commemorative Design had a three pane electronic display. On the left was a increasing scale tachometer with a lower section readout for the (standard on electronic dash) trip computer. The center display held the speedometer and the odometer only. Below were the standard array of warning lights. On the right, the display had a fuel reading up top, temperature gauge up amidship and a clock below. The trip computer’s toggle functions allowed you to swap the dash readout between U.S. and Metric settings – always fun to surprise passengers when you announced you were cruising at “130” and comment on how quiet the car was. Using the dimmer switch, you could also engage “Night Mode”, which would drop all but the speedometer display off the dash. Should a warning light appear or the fuel level get too low, the car would automatically revert to the full dash.

Was it a gimmick? Sure, but it was the 80s, and it was pretty damn cool at the time. Of course, it wasn’t as cool as the full talking dash available on European Quattros, but we take what we can get, right?

The interesting part came in that the “digidash” was supposedly limited to the CD models. It was not. There was a strange allocation of ’86s which also were built with the dash. In 1987, you had to get the later “Special Build” Coupe GT to get the digital, and slightly different colored, experience, right? No again, as randomly some early 87s had the 86 digital dashboard, too. This Tornado Red example is one of those latter examples:

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Roll the Dice? 1987 Audi Coupe GT Special Build

Published January 26, 2017 by Carter

If you pop on to the Audi USA configuration site, it’s easy to shake your head at how expensive it seems the range has gotten. The A3 is the cheapest product you can buy, but at $31,200 without options it’s hard to see how this gussied up Golf is affordable.

Yet, relative to where Audis used to sticker, that price is downright cheap.

Take this 1987.5 Audi Coupe GT Special Build. At the end of the run, Audi sold approximately 850 of these B2/B3 hybrid Coupes to the U.S. market. While things like the suspension and basic body were unchanged, the Special Build got the NG-code 2.3 inline-5 that was seen in the later Type 44/C3 and B3 chassis cars with 130 horsepower. The gearbox was also unique to the Special Build, having beefed up drive shafts (for some unknown reason, as the existing ones were already overbuilt). The Special Build was also the only front drive B2 to carry 4-wheel disc brakes – again, shared with the B3 instead. Inside, the Special Build got a special digital dashboard in a slightly different hue than the ’86 Coupe GTs with digital boards had. The interior fabric was updated to the Savoy Velour (also from the B3) instead of the B2’s Kensington Velour – this was signified by a triple stripe instead of a dual stripe. To help distinguish the limited cars, the exteriors featured a “dipped” look; window surrounds were body color as were mirrors and spoiler, and if you opted for Alpine White (L90E) the Ronal R8s were also painted body color. As with most later GTs, the Special Build came relatively loaded with few options, though most don’t seem to have the rear wiper selected for some reason. Sunroof, leather steering wheel, power windows, power defogging mirrors, cassette stereo and power antenna, cruise control and a trip computer were all standard. Only heated seats, a rear wiper, leather interior and an automatic transmission could be optioned.

The price for this “heavily optioned” exclusivity was $20,600, and you’d be hard pressed to leave a dealer for much under $21,000 after delivery charges. Inflation corrected from 1987 dollars to 2016 dollars, that’s about $44,500. The brand new, 2017 Audi A5 Sport with the 2.0 TSFI motor, quattro all-wheel drive and a 6-speed manual starts at $41,200 and has many more amenities standard. Is it any surprise that we see so many more luxury vehicles today than what we saw in the 1980s?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1987 Audi Coupe GT Special Build on Knoxville Craigslist

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1987 Audi Coupe GT Special Build

1987 Audi Coupe GT Special Build

Published November 30, 2016 by Carter

I spent a lot of bandwidth covering the many changes from the B2 to the B3 chassis Audi yesterday. However, there was a transitional model between the two chassis in the 1987 Audi Coupe GT Special Build. The Special Build carried many items that would appear in the production B3 front drive 90 the next year. As with yesterday’s 90 quattro, motivation came from the 130 horsepower 2.3 liter NG inline-5. This represented a substantial power upgrade over the outgoing KX 110 horsepower unit. The rear brakes were upgraded to discs, as well – the only Coupe GT to have this setup, which again would be seen on the B3. The interior was revised, too, with the Savoy Velour replacing the Kensington Velour. The easiest way to tell the difference was the triple (opposed to double) striping of the fabric, though several Special Builds were optioned with leather interiors.

In what was a mostly unnecessary move, Audi beefed up the standard gearbox with larger output shafts. The Special Build cars also came with a unique exterior treatment. The spoiler, B pillar and window surround, and mirror housings were all painted in the exterior color choice. This had partially been seen on the 1986 Commemorative Design cars, which often causes confusion between the two. However, the easy way to spot the difference without popping the hood or peering between the fourteen spokes of the Ronal R8s in back is that the rear spoilers on the ’86 models weren’t body color. As with the ’86 CD, color options were limited to Black, Alpine White, or Tornado Red. Also lightly revised was the digital dash, which changed color from Red in the ’86 CD and limited run non-CD models to an orange backlit unit.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1987 Audi Coupe GT Special Build on Central New Jersey Craigslist

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1982 Audi Coupe with 36,000 Miles

1982 Audi Coupe with 36,000 Miles

Published September 24, 2016 by Carter

Anthony Bourdain has been pretty successful with his show Parts Unknown, in addition to the many other reasons he’s been an award winning chef and writer. In that show, he’s always on the lookout for new and rarely heard of cuisine from around world. And, for the most part even though I’m not a ‘foody’, I find his presentation, travels, and quick summaries of far reaching historical periods pretty enjoyable. He is, for lack of a better comparison, the Jeremy Clarkson of food critics – at least, a bit. In one memorable-to-me episode, he set out to find this magical, amazing and hereto unheard of cocoa plant. But he wasn’t going just to taste this new and interesting food; he was going to secure rights to harvest the plant and to profit. And, frankly, he couldn’t have seemed less interested or involved in any step of the process. He complained, whined, and lackadaisically mused about the chocolate he’d later offer for $18 a bar throughout the episode, ignoring the cultural and economic aspects of the lives the people of Peru – where the bar’s magical ingredients come from. I was left feeling at the end of the episode that it was less an investigation of the process, and much more an advertisement for the overpriced consumerism he was going to attach his name to. Why wouldn’t you pay $18 for a chocolate bar – he’s Anthony Bourdain and he obviously knows more than you, so ante up!

The point of this is story that I’m left feeling that many of the inflated markets are doing just what Bourdain did; cashing in on a name and a reputation coupled with a market surge. One classic you can get into without all of the market hoopla, though, is pretty much any classic Audi outside of the Quattro – for now:

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Silver Narrows: 1985 Audi Coupe GT and 1986 Audi 4000CS quattro

Silver Narrows: 1985 Audi Coupe GT and 1986 Audi 4000CS quattro

Published May 30, 2016 by Carter

Though they share many components, each different variant of the Audi B2 chassis took on a character that made them all feel quite unique. Obviously the big headline for the chassis was the turbocharged Quattro model that has gained much more notoriety and respect in the marketplace over the last few years. However, the narrow-body variants still remain very affordable and entertaining options for enthusiasts. Today I’m going to look at two similarly priced 2nd tier options, both in Zermatt Silver Metallic. Let’s start the throaty 5-cylinder up with a KX-code 1985 Coupe GT:

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