the man who made it four by

On Our way back

from the Alps we call in to see Martin Smith, the Quattro’s designer, who has a house in the Luberon. ‘Nice car,’ says Martin when we draw up. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Can’t think who designed it!’

Martin, originally from Sheffield, retired recently as Director of Design, Ford of Europe and Asia Pacific. He started at Porsche, went to Audi and was only 29 when he designed the Quattro in 1978 – ‘a fortunate junior designer soon elevated to the youngest head of department at Audi’ on the strength of it.

‘My brief from Ferdinand Piëch [Audi’s head of technical development] was to “make it look technical”. To differentiate the Quattro from the 80 Coupé it was based on, I came up with the flared fenders to emphasise that it was four-wheel drive. As soon as you saw it, you had to look at the fenders.

‘But the budget meant I could only modify the 80’s fenders, not design new ones. I wish I’d been able to give them curved rather than flat tops – more like the Sport Quattro’s.

‘The design built from there with a different spoiler, valance, front bumper and the wheels. More offset meant they filled the wheelarches better. I modelled the rear spoiler in the Wolfsburg wind tunnel to prove it worked.

‘A suggestion for the name was “Quaddro” but Walter Treser, the project leader, said it had to be “Quattro” because that sounded more aggressive and technical.

‘For the graphics, I chose the distinctive squared-off “quattro” lettering put forward by Christine Gulden in the Ingolstadt studio. It’s stood the test of time. On the rally cars, I decided to use big blocks of colour – orange, light grey and dark brown – when everybody else was doing stripes.

‘Reaction to it made me proud that I’d been in the project team. You can equate its impact to the breakthroughs in other companies. Suddenly, Audi was on the scene. No-one had anything like it. It was exclusive. Within Audi, only Piëch had one. The poor designer was never privileged to have one as a company car!

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‘Piëch was the visionary who’d seen its potential. He put all the components together [from across the VW group]. I was extremely enthused to be working for a company like Audi and a man like Piëch. He came up with one thing after the other – leading aerodynamics, four-wheel drive, galvanised bodies, quality… He was the driving force behind Audi’s burgeoning as a brand.’

Martin is now a design consultant, splitting his time between Provence and London. His fine collection of classics, which he rallies regularly, includes a 1961 Austin-Healey 3000 Mk2 in Works rally spec, a concours 1956 Jaguar XK140 Roadster, a 1935 MG NA Special built by Peter Gregory as a K3 and running a supercharged 1400cc six-cylinder engine, and a 1966 Triton ‘Café Racer’ Norton with Featherbed frame, Triumph pre-unit 650cc motor and all the right bits.

‘I sold my Ferrari 430 Scuderia to get a 1960 Citroën 2CV – it’s called downsizing. Ribbed bonnet, suicide doors… just right for getting croissants!’