The Quattro A2 rally car was first appeared in the 1983 Tour de Corse/Rallye de France which was the 5th round (out of 12 in total) of the 1983 World Rally Championship. The Quattro A1 rally car was developed by Audi to meet Group 4 rally regulations which required 400 roadgoing versions of the car to be made and did not allow for radical alterations to the competition versions of the car compared to the street version. 1983 saw the end of Group 4 regulations and the start of Group B rallying. Group B required 200 cars to be made, which meant there was less pressure on manufacturers to make their proposed rally car suitable for road use thanks to the reduced commercial pressure of having to sell fewer cars. Audi developed a version of the Quattro called the A2 to take advantage of the new Group B regulations which allowed the use of advanced materials such as kevlar and carbon fibre to reduce structural weight, and allowed more extensive modifications to be made to the engine and to the bodywork.
The A2 has a large rear spoiler which incorporates an intercooler for the turbocharged engine. It also has wider modified wings to accommodate larger wheels which is the most obvious visual difference when compared to the earlier A1 Quattro.
Neither of the two Quattro A2s entered in it's first rally finished thanks to an accident affecting one car and the other catching fire. Hannu Mikkola and Arne Hertz gave the A2 it's first win in it's 4th rally, the 1983 Argentinian Rally. Lancia with their new 037 (which fully exploited the new Group B rules far more so than the Audi Quattro A2 which was merely developed from the earlier A1) beat Audi in the manufacturers championship by 118 to 116 points. Hannu Mikkola did win the drivers championship for Audi in 1983, compensating them for the loss of the manufacturers crown. He beat Lancia driver Walter Röhrl to the title by 125 to 102 points.
German driver Röhrl switched from Lancia to Audi for the 1984 season and won his first event in an Audi, the 1984 Monte Carlo rally, along with co-driver Christian Geistdörfer. The rally was a tremendously successful one for Audi, with A2 Quattros finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd. 1984 would prove to be a good year for Audi, resulting in a win in the constructors championship plus a drivers championship for Audi driver Stig Blomqvist. The Quattro A2 was superceded late in the season (in the 10th round, the Rally of San Remo) by the new Sport Quattro, which had a far shorter wheelbase than the original Quattro. The shorter wheelbase was intended to make the car more chuckable in corners, something the original car did not excel at thanks to a tendency to understeer due to the combination of 4WD and an engine mounted ahead of the front axle which made the car nose heavy.
This model of the 1984 Monte Carlo rally winner was made by AUTOart and is an Audi dealer edition meaning it is normally only available through the parts department of VW/Audi dealers. I bought mine from a German eBay retailer who specialised in sourcing Audi dealer edition models and I believe retailers who do stock them often buy them at retail cost from their local Audi dealer and re-sell them with a premium added on. The advantage of this model being a dealer edition is that legally it is considered a car part rather than a model and therefore legally a toy. This means that unlike the hobby shop editions of the rally Quattro A2 it has the logos of sponsor "HB" cigarettes on it. On the non-dealer editions these have to be left off as it is illegal in most countries to put tobacco logos on what is considered a toy in the eyes of the law. As I like my models to be accurate in appearance, I'm glad the proper logos are on this car, even if I'm totally opposed to smoking in general. I'd love to know if anyone has ever taken up smoking thanks to a logo on a model car!
As I'm in the middle of a house move (as of August/September 2006) all my models are in storage hence I'm not able to accurately rate this model for this review. To do so properly I like to have the model to hand so I can inspect it properly in order to give it a fair rating. Once our house move is complete I aim to get my models out of storage ASAP and add a full rating of this model to this review.
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