Barn-find 1985 Audi Quattro is a restoration job for the brave
Fire up the pressure washer! This Saturday we’ll find out just how appealing the Audi Quattro is to car enthusiasts of Britain and the wider world, when a sorry-looking barn find example goes to auction after being laid to rest on jack stands a quarter of a century ago.
The original 1985 Quattro has reportedly spent the last 25 years slumbering in an open barn on a farm, partially exposed to the elements and, if not all creatures great and small, then at least birds and rodents.
It has left the Tornado Red Quattro with sun bleaching and bird droppings, taking their toll on the paintwork, while the interior has proved a fertile breeding ground for mold and mildew. As for what lies beneath, there is no shortage of surface corrosion lurking throughout the car’s structure and componentry.
Interest levels are nevertheless said to be healthy. Classic Car Auctions (CCA), which is bringing the Quattro to the market as part of its September Live Online Auction 2020, told Hagerty it has received enquiries from around the world about this forgotten all-wheel-drive Audi.
The current owner bought the Quattro in 1993, when it was eight years old, used it for four years mostly for business journeys, and clocked up an impressive 178,000 miles. After changing jobs and planning to move to a farm, the owner no longer depended on the Audi and placed the car on jack stands in a cowshed. That was 25 years ago.
Now it’s someone else’s turn to take on custodianship of the Quattro, and hopefully they will take care to restore the turbocharged five-cylinder machine to its former glory. CCA has set an estimate price of £8000 to £10,000 ($10,300–$12,900), plus buyer’s premium and VAT.
Contrast this with the values of a top-tier #1-condition Concours example, for which the average value is $82,400, and some brave souls may feel that the car is special enough to justify investing in a restoration. Whether or not the cost of the car and the restoration would be more than the best-case-scenario value of the finished Quattro is open to question.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the car that revolutionized rallying, which battled with the Lancia 037 and, later, Delta Integrale, not to mention the Ford RS200 and Peugeot 205 T16. The likes of Hannu Mikkola and Stig Blomqvist powered the Quattro, and Audi, to victory.
Take a look through the gallery below and let us know if you feel the Quattro could be economically restored, or whether money doesn’t matter and it should be saved at all costs.
