11-11-2009, 09:30 AM
|
#1 |
| Contributor
Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Montreal, Canada Garage: 2008 M5, 2009 X5, 2008 335i convertible
Posts: 6,239
Thanks: 3,378
Thanked 7,558 Times in 3,227 Posts
| Compared: 2009 Audi A4 2.0T quattro S-line MT6 vs 1984 4000S quattro
     Quote:
Depending on your perspective, 25 years may or may not be a long time. In car years the quarter century is long enough to qualify a vehicle as officially an antique. In a metric of Audi progress 25 years are a lifetime as proven recently when we gathered a a brand new 2009 Audi A4 2.0T quattro S-line and its officially antique ancestor the 1984 Audi 4000S quattro for a quick comparison.
25 years ago this year Audi introduced their first all-wheel drive sedan to America. The more exotic and iconic Ur-quattro coupe had gone on sale just one year prior, but the high price of $35,000 for the mostly handbuilt fastback two-door relegated it to exotic status. Benefiting from more mass production practices, the 4000S quattro cost under half as much, $16,500, and made Audi’s new quattro all-wheel drive system much more attainable for consumers.
1984 was the last year for the original Giugiaro-penned body of the early B2 Audi 4000 sold as the 80 everywhere else in the world. Even still, the S quattro model benefited from a fair share of upgrades. While it didn’t get the coupe’s box flares or turbocharged engine it did get a bump in displacement from 2.1 to 2.2-liters for the normally-aspirated I-5. Running Bosch’s then cutting edge KE-jetronic fuel injection, the 2.2 produced a maximum of 115 hp at 5500 rpm and 126 lb-ft at 3000 rpm – a welcome surplus over 4-cylinder variants with just 88 hp and 96 lb-ft.
Those 1984 numbers may not seem like much but it is important to remember that even with the added weight of the quattro system the 4000 only weighed 2745 lbs. Also, unlike today’s market in which Audi offers automatic transmissions across the board and exclusively for many of their products, the 4000S quattro was solely built with a 5-speed manual gearbox. In 1984 Audi claimed its new 4000 quattro could knock out 0-60 mph sprints in 9.5 seconds and was rated 21 mpg city / 28 mpg highway by NHTSA standards of the time.
| More: fourtitude
__________________
M -The most powerful letter in the world |
|  |
Similar Threads 
