A surprisingly interesting evening

[urquattr085]

I was asked a favour by a family friend some weeks ago, to go and give some input for a re-design of their daughter/son-in-law's kitchen.

With recent events, I'd put this off a couple of times, but as they live locally and I'm on annual leave this week, I arranged to go and see them yesterday evening.

I'd been told that the son-in-law had bought him "a classic car" to quote his mother-in-law a while back, but she didn't really know what it was. Having met the guy once before, I had something like an early MX5 in mind of some other relatively modern classic.

Anyway, I thought it would be a good excuse to give the quattro a run out.

So I pulled up on his drive to be greeted by the chap washing his S3, nice motor I thought, when his neighbour came round all excited about my car. Shortly after, another guy from over the road came over to take a look as well - "heard you pull up and had to come and have a look" he said.

Not why I was there, but entertaining none the less.

40mins later, son-in-law says do you want to take a look in the garage................



Really, really wasn't expecting that!!

It needs work, which is underway and he's hoping to be on the road in another year or so.
He imported from Holland and its pretty original. It runs but badly - it has K-jetronic injection, so we've pencilled in a weekend for me to go over & test fuel pressures etc. See if we can get it running right. That'll give him some more motivation.

It's a cool car, and rare, but I was shocked at the level of build quality. They really aren't good. It's also very snug inside for a 6'1" me, verging on claustrophobic.



Needless to say, not a lot of time was left for kitchen talk

[Isimmo]

Originally Posted by urquattr085

I was asked a favour by a family friend some weeks ago, to go and give some input for a re-design of their daughter/son-in-law's kitchen.

With recent events, I'd put this off a couple of times, but as they live locally and I'm on annual leave this week, I arranged to go and see them yesterday evening.

I'd been told that the son-in-law had bought him "a classic car" to quote his mother-in-law a while back, but she didn't really know what it was. Having met the guy once before, I had something like an early MX5 in mind of some other relatively modern classic.

Anyway, I thought it would be a good excuse to give the quattro a run out.

So I pulled up on his drive to be greeted by the chap washing his S3, nice motor I thought, when his neighbour came round all excited about my car. Shortly after, another guy from over the road came over to take a look as well - "heard you pull up and had to come and have a look" he said.

Not why I was there, but entertaining none the less.

40mins later, son-in-law says do you want to take a look in the garage................



Really, really wasn't expecting that!!

It needs work, which is underway and he's hoping to be on the road in another year or so.
He imported from Holland and its pretty original. It runs but badly - it has K-jetronic injection, so we've pencilled in a weekend for me to go over & test fuel pressures etc. See if we can get it running right. That'll give him some more motivation.

It's a cool car, and rare, but I was shocked at the level of build quality. They really aren't good. It's also very snug inside for a 6'1" me, verging on claustrophobic.



Needless to say, not a lot of time was left for kitchen talk

Fantastic old beasts.

American import no less.

[John.]

Something different.

[urquattr085]

Originally Posted by Isimmo

Fantastic old beasts.

American import no less.

Indeed it was originally a US car but was purchased from Holland.

[mikes2]

They look the part but it really was a parts bin special - bits used from all different manufacturers.

The biggest letdown was the engine. The 2.7 V6 Renault / Volvo / Peugeot unit wasn't the best choice.

Values are high though

[SwallownAmazon]

Originally Posted by urquattr085

Indeed it was originally a US car but was purchased from Holland.

I thought they were thrown together in N. Ireland after JdL conned Thatcher's government into "investing" in his company.

[urquattr085]

Originally Posted by SwallownAmazon

I thought they were thrown together in N. Ireland after JdL conned Thatcher's government into "investing" in his company.

They were built in NI but mainly sold in the US where they set up franchised dealers

2 years of production (1981/82) mainly on govt loans built 8700 cars, then as Mike says, DMC went insolvent in Feb 82 I think, followed by bankruptcy by the end of that year.

The insolvency brokers brought back some of the workforce to finish the 270 or so part-built cars that still sat on the production line and these were sold as 1983 models.

Mike - spot on about being a parts bin car though, they actually took that 2.7 V6 up to 2.9L but still only got 130bhp out of it.

Apparently it was originally going to have Ford's V6, that was ditched for Citreon's CX 2000 engine (both to be mid-engined) which again was ditched for the Peugeout/Renault/Volvo option in a rear-engine configuration.

An interesting vehicle, will find out more of what it's like to work on in the future, no doubt.
The owner seems keen for my assistance.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by urquattr085

they actually took that 2.7 V6 up to 2.9L but still only got 130bhp out of it.

I watched a documentary where some bloke tuned one to 1.21 gigawatts.

[Isimmo]

Originally Posted by Ben

I watched a documentary where some bloke tuned one to 1.21 gigawatts.

Wheeler Dealers... I remember that tall bloke with the mad white hair and the little bloke with a big gob....Film lasted about an hour and three quarters and got really silly at the end with some time travel shite....

I hated it....

[urquattr085]

Agreed, load of b*ll*cks but I don't think the films have done DMC prices any harm though !! Everyone knows what they are. I've only found 1 for sale in the UK @ £38k.

Apparently there's still about 6500 kicking about. Does that make them less rare than an ur quattro?