Press "Enter" to skip to content

Tag: Ronal

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

1987 Audi 4000S

1987 Audi 4000S

Published August 22, 2018 by Carter

Update 9/26/18: This pristine 4000S has sold to a reader!

While I’m a big fan of the Audi B2 chassis, I don’t spend much time looking at or for the low man on the totem pole – the 4000S. If you read my Audi badging rant from a while ago, you’ll remember that there was no model below the “S” offered here, so the 4000S was the base model. Although these were the least powerful B2s on offer, in manual form they could keep up with the Coupe GT because they were also the lightest of the chassis here. Power came from a 1.8 inline-4 borrowed from the GTI and GLI Volkswagens, but it was mounted longitudinally like all B2 motors. Even though they were down on power to the 5s, the inline-4 also had 20% less motor hanging out front, making them fairly nimble. Like their 5-cylinder GT brethren, you had a choice between a 5-speed manual or the venerable 3-speed automatic that appeared in everything from the Vanagon to the Porsche 944. They were also the cheapest Audi you could buy in the 1980s. Though we often look at 4000 quattros, the reality is that about 75% or more of any given model year’s sales were front drivers. 1987 saw 9,043 out of 11,972 sold in this configuration. These appeared to be bought primarily by older women who wanted a more refined sedan but weren’t ready to buy the W201 Mercedes-Benz or E30 BMW. Much more often than their all-wheel drive counterparts, or even the GT, clean examples of the prolific 4000S pop up for sale:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1987 Audi 4000S on eBay

Read Our Post1987 Audi 4000S
7 Comments
Roll the Dice: 2002 Audi S6 Avant

Roll the Dice: 2002 Audi S6 Avant

Published June 30, 2018 by Carter

Typically, our ‘Roll the Dice’ features have been cars that are a bit of a gamble; little history is disclosed, there are no photos to show the car’s condition or no description, something’s odd about the example, it’s got a million miles…you get the point. Today’s S6 Avant is a bit of a different gamble, though.

To be fair, jumping in to any 15-odd year old German car today is somewhat of a leap into the unknown. You’re entering territory where the complicated electronics begin to fail, oil seeps from every joint of the motor and rattles permeate the body structure. Often, you’re left chasing the ghosts of deferred maintenance. Add up the number of things that could potentially go wrong on an older car and then cross reference the part costs, and you’ll quickly see the problem.

So what does that look like when we consider today’s S6 Avant? Well, if the seller is to be believed, in the past year they’ve spent $14,079 fixing this Audi. The last nice S6 Avant that I looked at sold for $13,000. You don’t have to be a math wiz to figure out that’s a bad deal. And that last nice S6 Avant was in much better condition than today’s model with only 50,000 miles on the clock.

So if you’re getting in to today’s car, you’re rolling the dice a bit that the $14,000 “invested” in this one has resolved all the problems. But there are positives, because the seller has opted for a no reserve auction format, and…oh yeah, it’s supercharged.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2002 Audi S6 Avant on eBay

Read Our PostRoll the Dice: 2002 Audi S6 Avant
4 Comments
Perfect Timing: 2005 S4 Avant

Perfect Timing: 2005 S4 Avant

Published June 21, 2018 by Carter

We usually try to give plenty of time for readership to check out the auctions we link to. However, if you click on the link below you’ll find there’s only a few hours before this auction will end. Why am I writing it up?

Well, it should be pretty obvious. I like yellow cars, I like wagons, and I like Audis. Three checks there! This is a rare package, and I like rare, too. And before you start chattering about the BBK’s propensity to eat timing chain guides, this one’s already been upgraded. So it must have a million miles? No, they’re in check, too, at 112,000. Best of all, the seller is offering the car in a no reserve auction format and for some reason, bids aren’t outrageous yet.

If you want a big, bad and bold manual wagon, ACT NOW!

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2005 Audi S4 Avant on eBay

Read Our PostPerfect Timing: 2005 S4 Avant
6 Comments
1985 Audi Coupe GT

1985 Audi Coupe GT

Published June 17, 2018 by Carter

I’m certain there’s a sect of the readership that gets pretty sick of me droning on about the Audi Coupe GT. I’ll acknowledge a very large soft spot for this relatively unloved Audi oddity. But it’s Father’s Day, and so as a treat to myself I’d like to look at another. And, I think you’d like to look at it too.

As we write up cars constantly, for me there’s always a point of thinking ‘Right! That’s it. There can’t be another clean original one out there!’ Because, at some point that certainly must be true. How many completely original, low mile and low ownership examples can there be out there. Who, for 33 years, would care for a car so much that basically everyone else gave up on when it was five years old?

Yet occasionally they turn up, and here’s a prime example. According to the seller, this 1985 GT has turned just 67,000 miles and he picked it up when GTs were still on dealer lots. Alpine White with the unique blue tweed interior and matching blue dashboard, he obviously loved the B2 as much as I do:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1985 Audi Coupe GT on Syracuse Craigslist

Read Our Post1985 Audi Coupe GT
5 Comments
1991 Audi 100

1991 Audi 100

Published May 11, 2018 by Carter

Today’s car is going to start a bit of a series of big-body Audis from the 1990s for me. Why start here? Well, the 1991 Audi 100 was a end of an era for Ingolstadt’s products in the U.S. For a little over a decade the big-body cars had been powered by inline-5 motors, and the NG 2.3 liter unit under the hood of this 1991 was at the end of its life span. 1991 would see the introduction of the new V6 motor that would become the staple of Audi for the nearly decade and a half. Late 1991 also saw the introduction of the Type 44/C3’s replacement – the all-new C4 chassis. Well, I saw “all new”, but inside it didn’t really look like it changed much. Outside, though…

There were other changes to the new 100 that I’ll go through in the next post. But let’s talk about today’s 100, which was really just a dressed up 5000. Like all the Type 44s, it received a revised interior with the nomenclature swap in late 1988. Dynamically, though, there were basically no changes from 1987. In fact, the ’87 5000 front-drive shared more in common with the Turbo than the later model which shared many components with the small chassis cars.

The front-drive 100 soundly outsold its more expensive 100 quattro and 200 brethren. Somewhere around 5,000 1991 100 front-drive sedans and Avants were sold here, but finding them today can be a bit of a trick:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1991 Audi 100 on eBay

Read Our Post1991 Audi 100
5 Comments