It should have been scrapped. But the Audi 5000 CS still exists. In 1986, it was the world's fastest four-wheel drive car.
It was first a media stunt, then a coward. But the Audi 5000 CS should have been scrapped long ago. So the fact that it exists today is actually a mistake. Some would call it a mikrael.
The story goes that in the 1980s, Audi was having a tough time in North America. So, to boost sales, the engineers were allowed to go crazy.
The result was the Audi 5000 CS. The base car is an Audi 100, which on the other side of the Atlantic was marketed as the Audi 5000. Apart from that, the two cars don't have much in common.
And yet. The engine – a 2.2-liter five-cylinder with a turbo – is the same. That is, except that the Audi people used their motorsport experience to coax 650 horsepower out of it.
This is written by the auction house Bonhams .
The result was that in 1986, Audi's test driver Bobby Unser, who had already won the Indy 500 race three times, managed to push the car to a top speed of 322 km/h. This happened on the Talladega Speedway oval track in Alabama.
Afterwards, Unser is said to have told Audi's people that the car was glued to the asphalt because of the four-wheel drive, what the Germans today call Quattro.
After the trip around the asphalt in Alabama, Audi was essentially finished with the 5000CS. And as is typical for prototypes, the car was supposed to be scrapped. It just didn't work out that way.
Instead, the car ended up in a private collection, where it has been well cared for. It was even supposed to have had its engine overhauled, and thus even more horsepower, just a few years ago.
The mission of a better image in the USA never succeeds for Audi. At least not with the Audi 100/5000.
Because after the record-breaking speed, several owners of the regular street cars went astray. In most cases, it turned out to be the owners' own fault, because they couldn't control the combination of four-wheel drive and 'relatively' high horsepower.
Still, it meant that Audi had to recall the car repeatedly. And that caused scratches in the already dull paint. That just doesn't change the fact that the 5000CS was and is a rocket. The oven with a for sale sign in the windshield.
The car will be sold at auction in Paris next week. Bonhams expects the final price to be somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 euros. That's the equivalent of one and a half million kroner if the bidding goes as high as possible.
