a 'Boys own' story!

[LYT4X]

Once upon a time there was a young lad who had only just become a teenager. As part of the transition towards becoming a young adult, there was an element of rebellion about being sent for a haircut for the last time. After this final bowl-cut at his mothers insistence, a haircut would be his own decision and style. The barber shop loomed and he entered the foreboding establishment which had all the ambiance of a back-street dentists. The man in the white coat lifted his gaze without stopping the scissors on his customers silvery locks and motioned for the lad to sit and wait his turn. Faced with the choice of watching an elderly mans trim, or sifting through the magazines strewn across the table beside him, the youngster picked up a green-fronted publication called ‘Motorsport’ and proceeded to sift through the pages. Little did he know that his life was about to be changed forever! He flicked though the pages until suddenly he was faced with an image which turned his world upside-down.



The words on the page detailed the Geneva Motor Show and the launch of the Audi quattro. He fell in love for the first time! Over the coming months (and years) he followed the exploits of Roland Gumpert, Hannu Mikkola, Stig Blomqvist and Michelle Mouton as they campaigned the Group4 Audi quattro with varying degrees of success. All this time, the car was always the star, whilst the personalities were a secondary consideration. For the next couple of years, he was using his pocket money to buy any motoring magazine which featured the quattro rally cars. Each time, the pictures were cut-out and stuck on his bedroom wall. The January 1982 edition of Autosport was a spectacular discovery, with a centre page spread showing the 1982 Monte car:



The teenager promised himself that he would have that car one day and would drive it on a Monte Carlo rally.......

At school in 1983, he spent weeks in the art class painting a large homage to his objective which could be added to that bedroom wall. Measuring six sheets of A2 paper, it was never going to win any prizes, but since art was simply a fill-in subject, there were no prizes being sought.



Once he was old enough to drive, he was never known for being sensible behind the wheel of a car. Though to be fair, he was never known for being reckless either – except by those of a nervous disposition who sat beside him! He gained a competiton license in the early nineties and won a number of championships including Autotesting, sprints and road-rallies.



As the years moved forward there were fads which came and went, but the first love always remained as a constant reminder of an ambition to be fulfilled. It was to be sixteen years until this young lad would be in a position to make a start on his dream…..

Time moved on and now in his late twenties, still looking at pictures of quattros in magazines, he spied an advert for a car which was reasonably local. An alpine white car complimented with white alloy wheels and a fairly low mileage. The car was purchased, but it never saw much use as the new owner had a business to run which was a seven-day a week affair.



Besides, the car didn’t look the way he wanted it to, as it was missing some colours and rallying decals. This was rectified within a year and in1997 the car now looked like the teenage dream. In fact, it was reckoned to be the first ur quattro ‘rally rep’ in th UK:



However, it didn’t go much like the dream. Seventeen years after the original Audi quattro appeared on the motoring scene, it was no longer the supercar which it had been at the start of the previous decade. Family hatchbacks had caught-up with the times and an Audi engine which was designed almost twenty years earlier was nothing more than a match for a modern shopping trolley.

At this time, there was a flight of fancy about getting the car to be transformed into a proper rally car. A company in Swindon was approached to do the work, but with ball-park quotes coming from a chap called Aelred at Dialynx in the megabucks territory, it was decided to put the car away until such a time when this twenty-something might have a chance of affording the work to be done properly……

A dozen years further down the line, a new millennium has come and gone. The twenty something became a forty something. He worked hard for himself throughout his thirties, starting from scratch when a new business made him penniless at the beginning of the new century. He and his wife sacrificed much over the years to the extent that they have never enjoyed that which most folks take for granted on an annual basis – a fortnights holiday! To be fair, he was relatively lucky with his working endevours and people began to see this chap and imagine a privileged background with money to burn. Nothing could have been further from the truth. However, the rally quattro dream lived on and more than a dozen years after he got his car, things began in earnest.........

Some said it was sacraledge to use such a good example of a WR to turn into a rally car. However, anyone who understands motorsport will know that you don't start with a scrap motor. After all, Audi never did. In 2008 the WR was potentially one of the best shells available having been cosseted under cover for many years and having covered only 42k miles. Waxoyl'd from new, the shell was in fantastic condition and was totally stripped bare:







Wings were still like new:



The car would be converted to Left Hand Drive and undergo a complete 'works spec' build by an experienced and respected motorsports workshop.

























The shell was then blasted back to bare metal and etch primed















Next, it was off to the motorsports workshop to have the job of bulding a modern (FIA compliant) rally car done properly



Trips abroad resulted in a number of specialist parts being procured:









All the Kevlar panels were made from orignal audi sport moulds.

New full length chassis rail and over-cill protection:



Floorpan/tunnel recess for 3" exhaust:





































An initial 'fitting' to see where things might be going in the car for headroom etc. results in seeing what the forty-something looked like a year ago!































































































So here we find ourselves in the present. The young lad at the beginning of the story is now heading for forty-four years of age and has spent more than he ever imagined possible on this project. He has yet to get to Monte Carlo with the quattro, but he has been there a few times recently in another of his 4wd's to check-out the lie of the land at the Col de Turini.





As you may have guessed, that chap is me, and I hope to have the car ready in the early part of next year. After more than thirty years, an ambition is going to be realised!

[istoo]

been waiting for this thread

Is it at your place yet?

[tommyboy]

Brilliant read there john...greatest of respect to you for ploughing on and ur dedication to keeping it going.

cant wait to see it in the flesh

[B2AUDI80]

cracking, hope its as enjoyable as you expect when you finally get to do it in her which im sure you will

[moonwatcher]

magic pure magic

[SteveT63]

Smiled all the way through reading this John and nice to put some images to the chat we had in the summer. Inspirational springs to mind

[4v6]

Absolutey A1!
My own dream is to run the WR up and down stelvio a few dozen times when i get it finished.

[Emjay]

what a great story and compelling read.

Live the dream

[90Quattro]

Aghh in Afghan otherwise would have gone to the speyside stages. Was at Lossiemouth for 5 yrs so used to love watching it in Cooper Park

[butch]

can you say where you got your shocks from and the price john? fantastic build keep up the exellent work, looking forward seeing it in action