Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
In the U.S., few Audi models have quite such a devoted following as the 1995 S6 Avant. Not many were imported, and those that were generally have been snapped up by enthusiasts and had miles piled on to them. Some have succumbed to accidents or been organ donors, leaving even fewer on the road 20 years later. However, we have 4 today available – amazingly all in different colors. Which would be the one you would choose? Let’s start with an Emerald Green Mica example:
There’s a “meme” circulating the halls of the interweb that strikes particularly close to home for me. It depicts a few images of cars – the first one being a total loss, and the last one being absolutely mint and perfect and the description reads “How I view the dent on my car” under the wrecked image and “how my friends view my car” under the mint condition photo. It’s true; all three cars that live at my home are generally considered by many to be “ridiculously” clean, but I can tell you every nick, scratch and dent on all three without even leaving this computer. I’m guessing I’m not alone and that some of you also have the same “problem”, but if not please let me know and my family will be happy to commit me. Either way, when I see this 1984 GTi, my initial response is thrill over such a great looking example – until I see that dent on the hood. Now, it’s all I can see. I can look at the back of the car and still see it there, as if I’m some sort of demented used-car Superman with dent-ray vision. It’s sad, because otherwise there’s a lot like with this GTi:
When I owned my 4-door 1986 Golf, there were two things I really coveted but never had; blacked-out VW symbols front and rear and red piping on my bumper covers. It may sound silly to hear such things, but those small details were just about all that differentiated the GLi and GTi from the normal Golfs and Jettas in 1986. Granted, there were other details, too – for example, you couldn’t get the color of my car – Titian Red Metallic – on one of the performance models, they had “big” 14″ alloys, subtle fender “flare” trim and the red piping continued to the side moldings. Other than that, you’d need to jump into the car to tell the difference; again, small but notable details like the steering wheel, dash trim and options that weren’t readily available on most normal A2s. But the addition of a few horsepower to these light sedans really transformed the driving experience. They weren’t fast by any means, but instead of lazily climbing the tach like your overweight co-worker trying to make it up the flight of stairs when the elevator is out, the GTi/GLis raced up the tach like those red trimmings seemed to promise they would. At least, it felt that way in 1986….
As Paul and our reader John both noted in last week’s 1991 Audi S4 post, the price of that appealing and clean example of was fairly high relative to what you could purchase a slightly higher miles but still clean model in the U.S. for, even not taking into account the cost of importing the car to the U.S. To underscore that point, today we’ll look at both an early and later version of the venerable 20V Turbo C4 chassis Audi – the enthusiast dubbed “Ur-S” cars. First off we’ll look at a 1992 S4, then a 1995 S6:
Our reader Larry noticed the nicely restored 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco 16V we wrote up earlier this month is back up for auction, with a Buy It Now price of $5,000. At that price, you couldn’t replicate the condition of this model and it looks like a good deal. If yesterday’s mint black Scirocco 16V got you excited but is too rich for you, here’s a cheaper way::
Last week, Nate wrote up a great Tornado Red Scirocco 16V, and while I disagree with his claim that it’s more attractive than the Audi Coupe, otherwise we see eye to eye – these are great little performance hatchbacks that can be run on a budget. Unfortunately, nearly everyone in the VW world already discovered that and finding clean, unmolested examples is quite difficult. Nate longed for some teardrop wheels on his example, and I’m happy to oblige with today’s super clean example, replete with the nicer Euro-bits, too: