Audi’s ballistic short-wheelbase Sport Quattro S1 was one of the stars of the fearsome Group B era. HenryCatchpole drives the most decorated survivor -
Sport Quattros were built in S1 spec and this is arguably the most important of those that remain. It is chassis no. 2, which finished 2nd at Rally Finland in 1985 with Stig Blomqvist at the wheel. It is also the car that was converted to use a PDK ’box and which Walter Röhrl drove in the Network Q with Phil Short later that year. If it still existed, then chassis no.
The idea of it flying at all seems a little unlikely when you see it static because it looks heavy thanks to its big, boxy shape. But when you waft open the almost flimsy driver’s door you’re reminded that it weighs only about 1170kg. The old Recaros look like they have been covered in a sort of grey tweed, while the backs of the seats have that honeyed weave that you only get with old Kevlar.
Unsurprisingly the clutch is heavy, the quadriceps in my left leg getting a workout as I push the pedal a couple of times to get a feel for the weighting. In contrast, the gearshift feels quite light and, although the throw isn’t that long, there isn’t the sense of a tightly defined gate to give clarity to the movements. Revs, clutch, try to find the biting point but then not slip it… and with a heavy-duty stutter we’re away.
This is the sort of turbocharged delivery your mother warned you about. The blast of boost is all-consuming. It’s not a clean shove of linear g-force, it’s a dirty detonation that infects the whole car. Short of Doc’s DeLorean reaching 88mph, there can’t be many cars that undergo such an alarming transformation. It reminds me of a Ferrari F40, which is a similar weight and has a similar power output, but this is even more violent. Even rawer.
Of course I’ve got the advantage of doing laps, redoing the same turns and finding the best combination of inputs. Yet getting into a flow or achieving any sort of repeatability seems difficult verging on impossible. But the satisfaction is so sweet when all your efforts combine in a corner to get the car rotating early enough and the boost arriving right on time so that the diffs lock, resulting in the car being hurled forward without hesitation.
The final thing that was used in period but now lies dormant is the PDK gearbox. Audi UK actually owns the dual-clutch ’box but as it’s a different size and shape to the H-pattern, it’s not the work of a moment to fit. The aforementioned bulges and patch-plates on the transmission tunnel show where it was squeezed in in the past.
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