Base on the Audi 80 as a starting point, the unique styling racing sports car was born by the work of British designer Martin Smith. Road testers of the time raved about the powerful performance and grip. It’s abilities that even 29 years later, the Quattro still feels a legendary sports coupe car. The purity of its steering, superb traction and tuneful powerplant are a joy.

Visually, the Quattro changed little, but subtle styling differences distinguished each variant. Early cars had four separate headlamps, but they were replaced in 1983 by combined units. Then, in 1985, it got a new sloping grille to go with its trim and badging updates.

Established Audi practice was to hang an in-line engine longitudinally in the nose, with the gearbox behind the axle line and the final drive to the front wheels between them. The clever part of the new four-wheel drive transmission was that the gearbox output shaft was hollow, and drove a centre differential (actually a modified Audi 50/VW Polo diff) at its rear end. Drive was taken from the centre diff through the hollow gearbox output shaft to the front wheels and by a split propshaft to the rear wheels. The result was an amazingly light and compact system which permanently drove all four wheels.

Power came from a turbocharged version of Piëch’s favourite five-cylinder engine, already under development for the 200 5T saloon and producing 170bhp. For the quattro it gained an intercooler and an electronic ignition system with an intake air temperature sensor, together with higher boost (up from 0.75bar to 0.85bar, about 12psi) and a bigger exhaust system, but the alloy head still had only two valves per cylinder. Output was boosted to 200bhp at 5500rpm.