Monsters from the past

Although it’s three decades since these classics did battle on tracks and at rallies around the world, their reputation and appeal remains undiminished as the anticipation ahead of this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed demonstrates.

Audi Tradition will showcase three absolute monsters of motorsport from the company’s illustrious past at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed which starts tomorrow (July 4th) and runs through to July 7th.

Here the Audi Rallye quattro A2, the Audi 90 quattro IMSA-GTO and the Audi 200 quattro TransAm will once again roar into life and remind the motorsport faithful of of just why they are referred to this day.

As icing on the cake, three of Audi Sport’s champion drivers will pilot these outstanding machines, with World rally champion Stig Blomqvist back behind the wheel of the car he drove to the world championship in 1984 – the Audi Rallye quattro A2. Five-time Le Mans winner Frank Biela drive the Audi 200 quattro TransAm, while three-time Le Mans winner Benoit Tréluyer will pilot the Audi 90 quattro IMSA-GTO. 

It is impossible to overstate the impact these three cars had on world motorsport when they were first unleashed. The 1984 Audi Rallye quattro A2 sported the longer wheelbase over the car that Hannu Mikkola had driven to a world championship the year before. On its debut in ’84, the new Audi car dealt the opposition a crushing blow with Audi scoring a triple victory at the Monte Carlo Rally. Walter Röhrl, who had just joined Audi Sport recorded the win on his first outing, while Swedish driver, Stig Blomqvist was next across the line, but went on to win the championship that year while Audi took the manufacturer’s championship. At Goodwood, Blomqvist will drive the very car he drove at Monte Carlo 35 years ago.

For Le Mans champions, Frank Biela and Benoit Tréluyer, the cars they will drive at Goodwood represent the Audi brand’s first forays into motorsport in the USA after withdrawing from world rallying.

In 1988, Audi took an Audi 200 quattro to the starting line of the TransAm series and rewrote history with an unbeatable performance from the very beginning. Audi won in the brand classifications, while driver Hurley Haywood brought home the driver's championship – both in the first year of the Audi 200 quattro competing.

The following year, Audi registered for the IMSA-GTO series with an Audi 90 quattro, where Hans-Joachim Stuck managed no less than seven victories in the single season. Only the fact that Stuck and the Audi 90 quattro IMSA-GTO missed the first two races of the season stopped the he and Audi from again taking the driver’s and manufacturer’s championships.