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Last week, Paul wrote up a nice 2005 Audi S4 Avant, one of the few manual V8 wagon options ever offered to Americans. The package of the B6 and B7 Avant were certainly quite desirable and as Paul also noted, they developed quite an enthusiastic following. As they should have; as enthusiasts, we hear constant whining about all of the cars that aren’t offered to U.S. markets; yet when afforded the option to buy these cars, often the folks doing the complaining won’t ante up and buy them. Consequently, we’ve seen the S4 Avant model leave U.S. shores in favor of more and more “sport” utility vehicles. What are we to do as enthusiasts? Snap up the remaining clean examples of Avants, that’s what. And today, if you want to stand a bit apart from the crowd, there is one of the rarest color combination B6 Avants available:
Being a fan of older Audis – and owning one – I’ve followed with much excitement the development of a small California-based tuning firm called 034 Motorsports. 034 – a reference to the 5-cylinder Audi motor part numbers – has taken a niche community and turned it into a flowering business. Initially starting with turbo modifications to the older 5 cylinder cars, the folks that make up the brain trust at 034 created some legendary Audis – most notable, the 1,000 horsepower turbocharged 80 quattro. But the reality is that these now 25 year old cars make up a very small percentage of the tuning market, so 034 turned to the much more popular A4 and Volkswagen GTi crowds, creating two stunning cars in the process. Less spectacular but stunningly effective was the A4 Time Attack car which went through several different engine configurations; but much more notable and impressive is what 034 attempted next; mid-mounting a V6 turbo into a 2001 GTi. The results are nothing short of stunning:
Recently I’ve written up a few tasty European market S6 quattros, but what’s available on this side of the pond? Well, even though the used market is a little different here than it is in Europe, there are still several great options in you’re into the C4 chassis and its legendary 2.2 20V turbocharged motor. Today I’ve got three examples of one of the more rare colors to see on the C4 – silver, and two with grey leather. Which will be the one you’d like? Let’s start with the oldest:
It was just a few days ago that we saw the last Audi C4 grace these pages, that time a Emerald Green S6. That car sure looked quite nice but was a little suspect given the lack of information regarding maintenance and was certainly well overpriced. Most of these sleeper super sedans fall in the $3,000 to $6,000 range, and while they’re not spring chickens they offer a tremendous amount of performance for that investment. Considering what that amount buys you in the Audi 4000 market these days, these S4 and S6 sedans are a downright bargain. If you’re willing to forgo looking for a low mileage example that is 100% pristine and instead focus on a solid driver that has been maintained, there are even more options that are affordable than just about any competition. Today’s first year 1992 S4 is no exception to this rule, with a strong history of recent maintenance and a desirable 01E S4 6-speed swapped in place of the original 5-speed:
It’s hard to believe I could make such a claim; that there would be unappreciated Audi S models. Even more surprising is that they’re recently produced. But the truth is neither of these cars grabbed the headlines of their bigger brothers – while the S8, RS4 and Europe-only C6 RS6 stole the show for Audi, in the background were two very competent, very fast and very luxurious cars that not many chose to buy. These truly are cars that would have been enthusiasts’ dream rides only a decade earlier – the C6 S6, with its sleek body hiding a Lamborghini-derived V10 that was modified to produced more useable torque, and the B7 S4 – the last run of the great 4.2 V8 and arguably the best looking since the original S4, punting 340 horsepower though a great 6-speed manual. Today, 7 years later, you can pick up one of these super sedans for around the entry-level price of a Volkswagen Golf. Simply amazing. Let’s look at the S6 first: