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Fancy owning a motorsport legend? Paul Davies looks at true classics that made their names on rally stages and race tracks, and still provide fine drives today

When the Federation Internationale Automotive agreed in 1979 that fourwheel drive vehicles could take part in the World Rally Championship, they were doubtless thinking of off-roaders such as the quartet of Dodge Ramchargers that would start the 1981 Marlboro Safari Rally. For the record Malcolm Smith and Rod Hall finished 9th and 10th onthat event, but by then things had started to roll in another direction - after the Audi Quattro, rallying would never be the same again. Finnish legend Hannu Mikkola was asked to test a prototype (in fact a 4WD 80 saloon) and told Audi: “when you go rallying with this car, I will drive it.” The Quattro won its first event (the Janner Rally in Austria) within a few days of homologation in January 1981, and the following month Mikkola and Arne Hertz took the car to a maiden WRC victory on the Swedish Rally. From then on the Quattro changed rallying forever. True, Talbot won the 1981 Championship with the Lotus Sunbeam, and Walter Rohrl was Drivers’ champ in 1982 in an Opel Ascona – both two-wheel-drive – but Audi was top Manufacturer in ’82. And to the present day only once (Lancia 037, 1983, manufacturers) has a four-wheeldrive car not won a World title. It wasn’t just the 4WD, proved first on the VW Iltis 4x4, that made the Quattro a legend. The five-cylinder, in-line, engine was near unique, and the turbocharger boosted road car power from 200bhp to 300bhp for rallying. It was big and heavy by ‘80’s rally standards, but power and traction ruled. Others could only follow. Early rally days with the car were fraught. Petrol leaking onto the turbo caused more than one fire - and nearly claimed the life of competitions manager Walter Treser - whilst cunning attempts to improve engine-bay cooling fell foul of event organisers. Still, Mikkola won two WRC rounds and Michele Mouton three, to only just miss out on being the first lady champion. The Finn was top world driver in ’83, and Stig Blomqvist the British champion the same year. In 1984 Blomqvist took the world title for Audi, and John Buffum was US champion in ’85. Audi developed the car well into the Eighties, with evolution versions giving more and more output, the sensational short wheelbase Sport Quattro of 1986 boasting 450bhp (with 20-valve cylinder head) before the suspension of Group B ended the power race. By then the lighter and more nimble Peugeot T16 and Lancia Delta were top dogs. The original intention was to build 400 Quattros to qualify for Group 4 rallying. But the car was also a runaway success with the public - boosted no doubt by that rally image - and no less than 11,452 cars were built before the last proper Quattro* left the production line in 1991. Which is good news if you want to bag a piece of automotive history at a reasonable price - so much so that we’ll be featuring the car in our Classic To Consider series soon! (*Note: The capital ‘Q’ is correct for this model. It was only when four-wheel drive became common through much of the range that Audi adopted the term ‘quattro’.)