In rain, mud, ice and snow ...

Press, 14 March 1985, Page 33

In rain, mud, ice and snow ...

By

PETER GREENSLADE

An all-wheel-drive car holds the road better than any two-wheel-drive model irrespective of the state of the surface. The road may be wet, dry, muddy, icy or snow-covered, it makes no difference. A four-wheel-drive car will simply overcome the obstacle without drama. Audi’s Quattro cars are no exception.

The latest Audi 200 Turbo Quattro, for example, will safely take corners at speeds about 50 per cent greater than any production two-wheel-drive car, irrespective of whether it has driven front or rear wheels. I strongly suspect that any other of Audi’s Quattros will do likewise.

True enough, the 200 Turbo Quattro, a large and spacious four-door saloon, costing well-nigh $lOO,OOO, rolls and tends to wag its tail a little when driven through corners near its limits, but that is not a bad thing. Such behaviour acts as an early-warning system, telling the driver that if he tries much harder he is likely to become part of the accident statistics.

It is highly unlikely that wealthy owners of 200 Turbo Quattros will attempt to drive them as hard as some of the Audi dealers and motoring writers did at Auckland-based European Motor Distributor’s recent test day to mark the introduction of the latest Audi range. However, it should be reassuring for them to know that even when driven very hard, these Audi cars will suffer fools gladly. The 200 Turbo Quattro makes good Audi’s promise that it would manufacture every model in its range in an all-wheel as well as

front-wheel-drive configuration. The luxury saloon version of the low, squat rallying Quattro coupe, the 200 Turbo is the flagship of the Audi range and it is a car of which the West German manufacturer can be justly proud. It is expensive and it looks it. The standard of finish and appointment is exceptionally high and, as you will have probably gathered, its road manners are impeccable. Its five-cylinder in-line 2144 cu cm engine with turbocharge and intercooler is mechanically fuelinjected and develops 134 kw <lB2bhp) at 5700 rpm. Maximum torque of 252 Nm is developed at 3600 rpm. From a standing start, this car accelerates without hesitation like a Boeing 737 at take-off, but, instead of lifting off, it remains firmly glued to the ground. It is claimed to be capable of 230km/h (about 143 mph), but at a constant 90km/h fuel consumption is said to be 7.1 litres per 100 kilometres.

It is a car with everything in it that an enthusiastic motorist with close on $lOO,OOO to spend could possibly wish to buy. Just as there is nothing more than a smidgeon of turbo lag apparent, there is not an inkling that the rack and pinion steering is power-assisted, because Audi has removed steering effort but not at the expense of elimination of the ’‘road feel” that sets an enthusiast’s car apart from a wellheeled motorist’s car. In the main, West Germany’s quality car-makers concern themselves more with technical innovation and perfection than they do with appearance. Although BMW, which seldom rings the changes in body styling, seems to bear the brunt of the criticism, MercedesBenz, which is now introducing slightly sleeker cars that are, nevertheless, unmistakably of the Stuttgart family tree, and Audi are not much further advanced. However, I must concede that Audi has almost certainly the most aerodynamically advanced production saloon in the world today — the 100 model.

No matter what anyone thinks of the styling of these cars, they have lines very much in keeping with the lifestyles of the people who buy them. They are not the sort of people who worry about such add-ons as gofaster stripes, for example. European Motor Distributors had a good selection of cars for us to sample but, because time is always limited, one had to be selective. I eschewed the 80 GTE and Quattro Coupe in favour of the 90 Quattro saloon which, at around $66,000,

seems likely to become one of the more popular models in the range that Audi dealers will be able to offer. In body styling and size it looks very similar to the 200 Turbo Quattro, but it is in fact a rather more compact car, although it certainly does not fall short on interior space, there being ample accommodation for five taller, if not excessively corpulent adults. The standard front-drive Audi 90 is offered in 2-litre 85KW form only in countries where cars are driven on the left of the road. Elsewhere it is available in 2.2-litre 100 KW form and this is the fuel-injected engine that is used in the Audi 90 Quattro which will be available in New Zealand.

It is an extremely civilised car and because it is more compact than the 200 Turbo Quattro, it seems to provide a better field of vision and is the car I would prefer to drive in town.

I found the clutch travel to be inordinately long and this is an obstacle that one must overcome if one is to drive the car smoothly.

The Audi 90 has been an unprecedented success in Europe and the United States, 16,000 examples having been sold to date. The Quattro version with the 100 KW engine has been significantly improved to give a worth-while performance gain compared with the old Audi 80 Quattro with nominally the same engine. The engine has been modified in precisely the same manner as that of the more powerful left-hand drive front-drive Audi 90. The cylinder bore is now 81mm, giving a larger capacity of 2226 cu cm with the same stroke. The compression ratio has been increased to 10 to 1 and although the maximum power remains the same, at 100 KW, it is now delivered at 5700 rpm, while maximum torque is now 186 Nm at 3500 rpm. Other features are lighter pistons, longer connecting rods, hydraulic tappets,

mechanical Bosch KJetronic fuel injection with additional air feed to the injectors, electronic idle stabiliser and an over-run cut-off.

Thanks to the higher torque figure at a much lower engine speed, this is a much more gutsy car than one would expect and, apart from the flexibility the torque figure bestows on it, Audi claims it to be a good towing car, its maximum rated capability being 1500 kg.

As with all the other cars in Audi’s Quattro family, the centre and rear differential locks can be engaged when the car is on the move. On the road, I found the 90 Quattro exceptionally responsive and almost as uncannily silent as the 200 Turbo Quattro. If the standard of appointment is not as high as Audi’s flagship, the difference is barely discernible. The handling, as one would expect, is in the true Quattro tradition and it will be interesting to see whether that of the newly announced Ford Sierra XR4 x 4, or the yet to be announced all-wheel drive 3-Series BMW, is any better. If I felt compelled to criticise these exceptionally well-made and expensive West German cars, I would have to say that the examples I drove have a turning radius that should deter owners from making Uturns in city streets. Apart from that, these are honest-to-goodness cars with a host of inbuilt safety features guaranteed to keep many more car travellers alive than an 80km/h speed limit. Footnote: The space-age electronic instrumentation that was a disquieting feature of the Audi Quattro Coupe has given way to matter-of-fact analogue instruments. Apparently Audi has discovered that the people who buy its cars are not keen about graphic disS instrument panels that up like Guy Fawkes Night.