09 Apr 09
Quattro GmbH
'Quattro' is synonymous with one of the most successful rally cars of all time and one of the most seminal sports cars of the Eighties. The Audi Quattro, essentially, cleaned up in the World Rally Championship, and it is the grandfather of the 'Quattro family' which gave birth to sublime road cars like the Audi RS4, RS6 and the R8.
Quattro GmbH, founded in 1983, had nothing to do with the excellent ur-Quattro but was actually created as a marketing arm for Audi to promote its 'exclusive lifestyle articles'. It wasn't until 1992 that it dabbled in road car building and was heavily involved in the joint collaboration with Porsche to build the first RS model, the RS2.
Best car: Audi RS4
A car that not only uses a gorgeous V8 and delivers storming performance, it also had the best handling of any Audi model ever (until the R8 arrived). If that wasn't good enough, it also had a ride that shamed many other non-sporting models.
What were they thinking: Audi RS2
Sprinting from standstill to 60mph in just 5.2s and maxing out at 163mph back in 1995 was unheard of from a family estate car, but the headline performance figures hid the fact that the RS2 wasn't that good - chronic on/off turbo lag, awful steering and dull handling took the gloss right off.
