40 years ago, the company with the four rings presented the Audi quattro, taking a major step into the premium segment in its long history.
To mark this anniversary, Audi Tradition is opening a new special exhibition at the Audi museum mobile in Ingolstadt on June 1, 2020 (until February 28, 2021): "IN BETWEEN". The exhibition shows the path of the Audi quattro from the past through the present to the future and presents a wealth of studies and motorsport witnesses from the last 40 years.
The past was just the beginning
Since the original quattro made its debut at the Geneva Motor Show in 1980, the principle of four driven wheels has developed into one of the brand's strongest pillars. To date, Audi has produced almost 10.5 million cars with quattro drive. This is an impressive success, but it is certainly not intended to be a final tally, just an interim result that provides an incentive to continue the success story.
This is especially true at a time when many things are changing. The automotive industry is changing: we are in the midst - IN BETWEEN - of a transformation that is determined by the search for new drive technologies and digitalization. What is certain is that the past 40 years have only been the beginning of a development that Audi has significantly shaped with Vorsprung durch Technik, reinventing itself time and again in the process.
Milestones of the past and visions of the future
So it continues and we can look forward to seeing what the "Fascination quattro" has in store for the future. The new special exhibition at the Audi museum mobile gives a small impression of this, not only showing some of the milestones from 40 years of quattro history, but also giving a glimpse of what the quattro principle will look like in the future with current studies. An Audi Ur-quattro and an Audi Sport quattro will also feature in the exhibition.
For the first time, the "Audi hillclimb vehicles" are also gathered in one place: The Audi 100 CS quattro in which Harald Demuth drove up the ski jump in Kaipola, Finland, in 1986, the Audi A6 4.2 quattro in which Uwe Bleck repeated the drive at the same location in 2005 and finally the Audi e-tron in which Mattias Ekström mastered the 40.4 degree incline of the legendary Streif in Kitzbühel. The Audi 100 is represented by an identical model, the other two cars are the original vehicles.
Comfort and off-road capability
The quattro legend began in March 1980: during the Geneva Motor Show, an all-wheel drive, sporty coupé caused a huge stir. The Audi quattro was the first high-performance vehicle to be offered with permanent all-wheel drive, a drive concept that had previously only been used in trucks and off-road vehicles. The idea for such a four-wheel-drive passenger car had come up in the winter of 1976/77 during test drives with the VW Iltis off-road vehicle being developed by Audi for the German Armed Forces.
The excellent handling of this off-road vehicle on ice and snow led to the idea of trying out all-wheel drive in a more powerful road vehicle. The result was a sporty Audi Coupé called quattro. A version of the 2.2-liter five-cylinder turbo engine presented in the autumn of 1979, with an increased output of 147 kW / 200 hp, provided the propulsion. The Audi quattro made its official motorsport debut at the beginning of 1981 at the January Rally in Austria. From then on, the all-wheel drive powerhouse from Ingolstadt revolutionized the international rally and racing scene.
To mark the occasion...
A special element awaits visitors to the exhibition. Originally planned for the canceled Geneva Motor Show, the Audi museum mobile presents an installation of wildly jumbled television sets on which rally films from the Audi archive and from private sources will be shown in an endless loop.
