Your Next Winter Car: 1984 Audi 4000 S Quattro
There are a lot of 4s in this one: it’s a 1984 Audi 4000 S Quattro, with all 4 wheels being powered, it has 4 doors, 4 headlights, 4 rings on the grille, and it’s 4 states away from me… ok, I’m pushing things with that last one. This Audi is listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of just under 4-grand, at $3,666. I’m not sure what the significance of that number is but I may have changed at least one number at the end to a non-6. It’s located in Lexington, Oklahoma and it sounds and looks like it could be a fly-in-drive-home type of car.
This car wasn’t found in a barn, but it’s over thirty years old, it’s interesting, at least in its configuration of being all-wheel drive with a 5-speed, and it’s cheap. The Audi 4000 was a replacement for the aging Audi Fox, and by 1984, it was the first time that US buyers could get the famous Audi Quattro system on a four-door, Audi. I’m not a red car guy, but as a huge Audi fan and long time Audi owner, I would love to have this car for winters. It’s just gritty enough to not worry about driving it in the snow and salt. The next owner will want to sock a little bit away every month for repairs as there will be some for sure, there always is on older cars, especially ones with a complicated drive system such as this car has.
This blurry photo shows a great looking car, at least condition-wise. The seller says that there are “no MAJOR rust issues anywhere on this car, some surface rust here and there.” I don’t really see anything wrong other than some faded paint, especially on the rear spoiler. And, lots of surface rust on and under the front spoiler. And, an oddly scary, exposed belt situation; imagine getting a tumbleweed jammed in there driving across Oklahoma on the way home.
The interior is well-worn and dirty, and you can see the missing chunk-o-dash there on the left, and the worn shifter. The cracks on the dash really define “cracked dash” more than most that I’ve seen. The back seat looks great, it just needs a heavy-duty cleaning like the rest of the interior does to make it shine again. As does the uber-dirty trunk compartment, there’s a lot of Oklahoma dust in there! The spare should be mounted to the left of the “trunk tray“. This car has power mirrors and power windows in front but doesn’t appear to have power windows in the rear, strange by today’s standards. Being a Quattro, it has two vacuum-operated differential controls on the center console, but they aren’t really shown in the photos. The interior could, theoretically, look like this again with some cleaning and detailing, and adding a missing part or two.
Other than some new lines and hoses, the engine could use a good cleaning, too. The seller says that this 2.2L inline-five cylinder with 115 hp and the driveline are in “good shape”. There isn’t a lot of information given, but with a little luck, some diligent routine maintenance, and a good friend who is an Audi mechanic, the next owner should have a winner here. This car was $16,775 in 1984 which equates to around $39,330 today. Most SUVs will cost you more than that and you will not have as much fun driving them as you will this car. Have any of you owned an Audi Quattro?
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Comments
Add some group B rally stripes , a number on the door and a pair of big round Hella lamps on the front. Let the fabricated stories begin !
nice ride.
needs redlines. ;-)
Take my money ,pity I’m in Oz .had a 85 Audi 80 sport in Scotland ,best car I ever owned,apart from my new HiluxSR5
I have a 1984 Audi 4000 quattro that is in much worse shape than this cosmetically. The previous owner decided to make a one of a kind harlequin 4000 with some rust-oleum…
They’re wonderful cars to drive. The motor and drivetrain are as bulletproof and maintenance free as it gets. I have roughly the same number of miles on my car and have replaced the clutch and throwout bearing because they throwout bearing went bad.
Electronics are generally reliable with the exception of the front window regulators. You’ll be thankful the rear windows crank up and down manually! Power window regulators are NLA and are rarer than hens teeth. I have a 1983 4000 parts car, 4 cylinder and front wheel drive, that will be donating its manual front windows to my quattro.
1984 4000 quattros are especially uncommon because the B2 platform got a facelift for 1985.
I agree with Andrew and Kenny, but to the writer Scotty, one should know about these cars before making the car sound iffy, I owned the 84 Coupe GT and an 85 4000 quattro, over all they are good cars, but once you drive a quattro one loses the joy of front wheel drive, these cars handle very well, yes, 84 was the first year of the sedan, this one for sell looks pretty solid, it is missing its front spoiler, but with the non-metallic paint the color can be polished and waxed to make it shine, odometers go bad, if the trip odometer is all on “0” mileage is questionable, but the engine will go over 300k with basic maintenance, if one needs a car for the winter, this one would be great in the snow and rain or mud.
My 85 still passes California’s smog test with ease, if I can find a tester that knows how to do it, most yell, “to old”…. I have even seen one as a snow plow.
I just did a quick search on Rock Auto. $220 you send your unit and they will have it remanufactured…
Scotty, the “quattro” should be lowercase. Uppercase refers to the specfic original model. Lower is the all-wheel drive system and optional add on. The ’84s have a bunch of unique bits that the ’85-87 didn’t have. The overall presentation is t bad considering there are few Type 85s left in general, especially so for pre-85 models.
Also, Marc, nice looking 4K but I disagree about it changing your mind about FWD. I’ve owned all the US variants of the Type 85 and still have two GTs. The GT is a much better driving car in most circumstances, including on track. They’re lighter, faster and more nimble than the quattro model and have fantastic balance. They also (to me, maybe I’m alone) look better.
What’s an Audi, or inny.
TOO many 4’s, Not 4 me !
Still waiting for an Audi fox to show up…anywhere! I like the 4000, but the 80-90 model is my early favorite…the beginning of Audi’s stellar styling and awesome road manners.
These are the best there is a reason why some racing circuits band these from racing due to the fact they were too good for the competition 🍻
I sold cars in the 80s and someone traded in a manual Quattro 4000cs. I drove that car for 2 weeks before we sold it. I remember I loved it. Great handling but not a harsh ride, nice interior, the shifter was pleasantly loose enough to throw through the gears but precise enough to know you were going through the gears.
The icing on the cake? My first date with my wife… 29 years ago! Maybe it wasn’t the car that was that great. ☺️
one of my favorite audi designs. always liked the clean line on the 4000’s