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It’s always fun to see what the creative engineers can come up with out there. The guys at CG Motorsports clearly wanted to show their building skills, so they went a roundabout way of making an E36 DTM-style M3 tribute, albeit in show/street-car guise. I will admit to a guilty love of wide-bodies, though this love is confusingly matched with a distaste for wings and overdone wheels. These guys took the basic-but-capable 318is and stuck M3 bits all over, including some body parts, suspension, transmission, and engine. Add a DTM-style widebody kit, and you’ve got a tuner’s show car! They’re selling it in a way that sounds like more trouble than it’s worth – offering the chassis and body alone, or with all of the running gear and additions – that just makes me scratch my head harder. Taste and selling tactics aside, it is a clean FrankenBimmer that, at least to me, has some potential.
Like the closest counterparts, the BMW M3/M5 and the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3 16v/500E, the Audi V8 quattro has long enjoyed a cult following. Unlike those other cars, though, finding a decent V8 quattro these days is quite tough. First, not many were imported – a few thousand may sound like a lot, but it’s less than the total number of E30 M3s imported, for example, by a long shot. By the time they got to their last production year, only a few hundred of the super-sedans were imported. Second, because they’re complicated, older cars that lost a lot of their value in the 1990s, many fell into states of disrepair. Over its short life, the Audi V8 underwent numerous changes; from the introductory options of automatic or manual, the 3.6 liter quad-cam all-aluminum V8 pumped a respectable 240 horsepower but by the end of the run the automatic-only 4.2 liter displacement bump resulted in nearly 280 horsepower. Sure, that’s small potatoes today, but outside of the limited Sport Quattro, these were the most powerful production Audis made before 1995. Today we’ll take a look at two of the more desirable models for different reasons – a 3.6 5-speed and a late 4.2 model, both Pearlesant White with Grey Connolly leather
Fans of the Audi V8, rejoice! I know there are a few more than just me out there and we always love seeing a clean example of one of the best bits of Audi engineering in history. Sure, there are more significant Audi models, but the V8 certainly deserves to be amongst the top 5. Many view it as an overly complicated, underpowered car – and indeed, in 3.6 automatic form as it was originally received in the U.S., the V8 felt a bit flat. But let’s not forget that Audi reinvigorated what was already an aging chassis to make it feel remarkably fresh. They brought for the first time an automatic gearbox to all-wheel drive, opening an entirely new market share for Audi and making a real contender in the large executive market. But for motorsport fans, the real meat of the Audi V8 meal was the sporting potential of the manual models. It’s often overlooked, but the V8 was a remarkable performer, especially in manual 4.2 version. Today’s example doesn’t have that magical setup, but even in less powerful 3.6 form the car was plenty potent when tied to a 6-speed manual:
From arguably what was the weakest motorsport background of the major German automobile manufacturers in the 1970s, Audi and the Volkswagen group have grown into what is undoubtedly the most active and diverse in the past 30 years. It’s funny, too – since, generally speaking, most enthusiasts would place Porsche and BMW ahead of Audi with sporting credentials; but then, just cover the amount of racing that the Volkswagen Audi Group are involved in. Most notable would probably the 13th victory in 15 years for Audi racing the 24 Hours of Le Mans – an incredible feat and precariously close to the all time record of 16 victories by Porsche. Then there are the R8 customer racing programs and Audis involvement in the DTM since the 1980s. Though Audi dropped out of the Rally scene that bore the legend of Quattro, Volkswagen is no slouch either having won the WRC title last year. Volkswagen also runs a one-off Scirocco cup in addition to Formula 3, Dakar and Global Rallycross efforts. Bentley is still on the radar as well, having also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and is now racing Porsches and Ferraris with their new GT3 racer. Lamborghini, though not often associated with motorsport ironically, also has a one-off series called the Super Trofeo and previously ran in GT1 as well. And let’s not forget that Audi also owns Ducati, one of the most famous racing names in the motorcycle world. All in all, then, there aren’t many manufacturers that come close to the level of corporate involvement that the Volkswagen group engages in. One of my favorites until fairly recently was the German Touring Car series, more commonly referred to by with German ackronym DTM – Deutsche Tourenwagen Meistershaft, and since 1996 the Audi A4 has been a lead contender:
They say the devil is in the details; one of those details in the late 1980s and early 1990s Audis was the insulating foam designed to keep the cabin quiet. When the cars were new, the V8 quattro really was a big step up for Audi – significantly more refined in presentation than the Type 44 on which it was heavily based. But when I owned my 1993 V8 quattro – notably, in this same color combination of Ragusa Green Metallic and Travertine leather – the headliner was failing. Because that seemed to go hand in hand with the air conditioning also not functioning, I spent a fair amount of my time in the V8 with the windows down. Of course, this resulted in a rippling headliner spewing the contents of the sound isolation foam. This foam was pretty amazing stuff, I’m sure. Like everything else German, it seemed to do its job quite well until it didn’t anymore – at which time it failed in spectacular fashion. Granules of this foam made it everywhere – not only covering the interior of the car, but also my clothes and hair. It was somewhat comical, as I was showing up for work appointments in this seemingly top of the line Audi covered in a fine mist of orange foam. It was as if an Oompa Loompa had attacked my Audi by suicide bombing, and I was walking baffled from the aftermath looking a bit like an orange version of the Peanuts character Pig Pen. What was particularly amazing about this foam though was where it chose to adhere to – in this case, it would stick to everything except the roof, and when you tried to clean it up it would ball into even stickier slugs that were near impossible to remove from whatever surface they found themselves on. Sound appealing? You too can experience this:
