MOTOR
MOUTH
Curt Dupriez
Would meeting a childhood crush face-to-face bring blush or blunder?
Simple. Fun. Potent.
Heroic. It’s the only
old car I truly, badly,
madly want
O
nly days after my best and worst drives of 2014 hit
motormag.com.au I realised I’d made the mutha-of-
all oversights. I’d forgotten Sweden in March. I’d
forgotten the short-odds favourite for bucket list-
topper of the year. Or the decade, perhaps.
What happened was I scoured all the new cars I’d written about
in 2014 and, in the moment of selection, simply forgot about my
short-yet-utterly momentous experience in a 30-year-old jigger I’d
yet to write about. Oops.
Psychopathic thrashings of Audi S1s on frozen lakes, a hellride
with the legitimate Stig (Blomqvist) in a genuine ex-Röhrl Group
B rally monster, a stay in a Bond-esque Swedish chateau – I was a
pig in brown snow. Days rarely get better.
But this day did. Parked up, freezing its wastegate off in minus-
20-degree ambient at Audi’s S1 launch was a bona fide, road-
going Sport Quattro, blood red in colour and as mint as lamb
sauce. One of four owned by Audi Museum. More impressive
still, as build-plate Number One, this example was the king of
Group B-homologation road car royalty. Short-wheelbase, 221kW,
carbon-Kevlar panels, only 214 built... but, seriously, if this is
news then you’ll have to Google the rest from whatever rock
you’ve lived under.
For sheer pedigree and achievement, it’s one of my all-time great
hero cars. In theory, because I’d never actually seen one.
And what a marvel of glorious daftness it is. It’s ugly, the
wheelbase is ridiculous, token rear seating laughable. It’s also
noisy, archaic, a little agricultural and pretty low rent in the
VW/Audi parts bin fit out, particularly in the cabin. In design
respect, outside of its focused and potent purpose, it’s a road car
abomination. And should such a car front up in showrooms right
now for $40K I’d probably pan it, despite the fact Sport Quattros
now fetch half-a-million bucks.
That’s the thing: newer is almost inevitably better; pragmatism
of reality rules over sentimentality. That said, I do believe in the
soul and spirit of a machine. So I took this rare opportunity togawk long and close enough to bask in its halo, yet far enough
away as to not breathe on the thing.
“Would you like to drive it?” its German minder chimed.
“What, NOW?” I replied, as in ‘this lifetime?’
They say don’t meet your heroes for risk of bursting that
sometimes immense fanboy bubble. But sudden heart palpitations
were drowning out any sensible urge of resistance as I was shoved
into the musk of mid-’80s leather and plastic.
And so for the next 30 minutes, NOW happened: the first 10
behind the wheel with the minder shotgun, the last 20 with a
photographer documenting a whirlwind affair between German
heroism and an Aussie crush three decades in the making.
I could write reams about this car’s history. And I could double
the word count explaining what it’s like to punt Number One
around an undulating and slippery makeshift ice rally course Audi
carved into Lapland – its steering, the five-pot’s character, the
nuances of its bespoke-for-1984 Quattro system. But I just wanted
the spirit and soul of the Sport Quattro to crush my misgivings
about old cars and show me some joy. And as I lifted off to swing
its tail entering a huge sweeper I prayed the experience would
bring elation, though I’d take ‘enjoyable’ as a satisfactory win.
Pedalled with equal measures of kid glove trepidation and now-
or-never blaze-of-glory gusto, car and driver came together in an
almost Zen-like rhythm and groove. In the handful of laps at my
disposal, the Sport Quattro felt so attuned to my driving wants
and whims on a fundamental level, while offering full-boost
fringes both fiery and deliciously wicked.
Simple. Fun. Potent. Heroic. It’s a perfect cocktail. It’s as good
as I’d hoped it could be. When that lottery windfall comes to me,
it’s the only old car I truly, badly, madly want. I’d probably fawn
over it with the kind of love and paranoia justifiably reserved for
an only child. Embarrassing but I don’t give a rat’s.
I’d probably opt to buy a faster, comfier, more luxurious modern
German too to share the garage. Anything from most of Audi’s or
its contemporaries’ ranges would likely do the job. MWorldmags.netWorldmags.net