How a new steering system ruined the new Audi Quattro
In March 1991, an Eighties icon evolved. But as reported, Audi’s new Quattro missed the point spectacularly thanks to one particular example of progress
New-car magazines have a tendency to condemn anything that’s been succeeded. All it takes is a power hike, new gadgets or voguish restyle and the car they spent a decade praising will start to get derided as ‘off the pace’. Things didn’t work out quite this way for Audi in 1991. Having defined the Eighties with its Quattro, first as a devastating rally car that forced rivals to redesign their challengers, and also as a new kind of high-tech executive express with the 20v evolution, once the rally initiative had been lost, it faced a tough task. The old 80 platform that the Quattro had been built on had been retired. The new 80 needed to sire a replacement. Audi dispatched a new Quattro S2 along with the last of the old 20vs to Exmoor for CAR to play with, eagerly anticipating the results.
‘I am making charitable excuses for the S2’s appearance,’ admitted Roger Bell as he negatively compared it to Vauxhall’s similar but altogether more dramatic Calibra 4x4 Turbo. ‘A coupé without visual charisma is a coupé without point.’
On paper, Bell acknowledged, the new car was better. Lowerdrag shape meant 150mph rather than 140, and the same range despite a 4.8-gallon-smaller tank. Acceleration was faster, throttle response better thanks to reduced turbo lag, and even gearchange quality had improved, ‘No Audi I’ve driven has had a better shift,’ noted Bell.
So what was wrong with the S2? ‘The Quattro draws you into the action as intimately as the S2 detaches you from it,’ Bell said. ‘The reason for this awful regression, which serious drivers will abhor, is speed-sensitive steering.’ The idea behind Bosch’s Servotronic PAS system increased steering weight with road speed. But regardless of velocity, he found it ‘light and lifeless’. By contrast, ‘the lines of communication through the Quattro’s small, thick-rimmed wheel are as subtle as they are clear.’ What Bell clearly found most frustrating, was that the steering masked abilities in the S2 that may well have equalled the Quattro – without Servotronic the S2 would run the Quattro close dynamically. He summed up, ‘What separates them cannot be measured objectively. It is a subjective issue, perhaps an emotional one, called in our language “driver appeal”.’
Audi, eagerly anticipating praise, booked out CAR’S opening spread with an advert trumpeting the new car’s ability to avoid accidents thanks to four-wheel-drive wet-weather traction. ‘We’ve done our best to prevent it making an impact,’ ran the tagline.