Audi: Quattro drive celebrates anniversary 🎥

Mattias Ekström conquered the finish slope of the Streif at Kitzbühel in an Audi e-tron in 2019.

The show traces the path of the Audi quattro from the past to the future and presents studies and motorsport contemporary witnesses.

Since the original Quattro made its debut at the Geneva Motor Show in 1980, the Quattro concept has become one of the brand's strongest pillars. To date, Audi has produced almost 10.5 million cars with this drive system.

Jump vehicles in one place
For the first time, the ski jump vehicles will also be on display at the exhibition. These include the Audi 100 CS Quattro in which Harald Demuth drove up the ski jump in Kaipola, Finland, in 1986, the Audi A6 4.2 Quattro in which Uwe Bleck repeated the drive at the same location in 2005, and finally the Audi e-tron in which Mattias Ekström mastered the 40.4-degree gradient of the Streif in Kitzbühel.

Test drives for the German Armed Forces
The all-wheel drive legend began in March 1980, when an all-wheel drive coupe caused a sensation. The Audi quattro was the first high-performance vehicle to be offered with permanent all-wheel drive, a drive concept that until then had only been used in trucks and off-road vehicles.

The idea for such a four-wheel drive passenger car had arisen in the winter of 1976/77 during test drives with the VW Iltis off-road vehicle under development at Audi for the German armed forces.

Premiere at the January Rally
The result was a sporty Audi Coupé with the epithet quattro. The thrust was provided by a variant of the 2.2-liter five-cylinder turbocharged engine introduced in the fall of 1979 that had been boosted to 200 hp.

The Audi quattro made its official motorsport debut at the beginning of 1981 at the January Rally in Austria. From then on, the all-wheel-drive powerhouse from Ingolstadt revolutionized the international rally and racing scene.

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