Audi launched its first World Rally Championship offensive with the standard wheelbase A1 and A2 quattros in 1981, and won the WRC manufacturers’ championship just one year later. The late, great Finnish driver Hannu Mikkola went on to secure the drivers’ trophy at the wheel of his A2 in 1983, and in 1984 the brand swept the board, triumphing in both drivers’ and manufacturers’ championships, with Swede Stig Blomqvist becoming world champion using an early version of the short wheelbase Sport quattro.
To sharpen its competitive edge in an increasingly hotly contested Group B class, Audi Sport replaced the original Sport quattro with the considerably more outlandish-looking Sport quattro S1 E2 in 1985. Its dramatic ‘skyscraper’ rear wing, skirts and frontal ‘cowcatcher’ spoiler were the result of intensive development in conjunction with Formula 1 aerodynamicists and were designed to maximise high-speed downforce. Repositioning of some engine ancillaries and cooling components also helped to significantly improve weight distribution, and therefore handling, versus the original Sport quattros.
The S1 E2 benefited from further incremental improvements until Audi Sport withdrew from rallying in 1986, after which Walter Röhrl famously drove a specially modified version of the S1 E2 to victory at the Pikes Peak hill climb in the USA – a fitting finish for the ultimate evolution of a genuinely transformative competition car.
Technical information
- Cylinders – five in-line
- Displacement – 2142cc
- Power – 476PS
- Torque – 480Nm
- Max speed 146mph
- 0-62mph in 3.1 secs
- Transmission – six-speed manual
- quattro all-wheel drive
- Weight – 1090kg
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