In retrospect it was inevitable that I would gravitate to an Audi at some point. Audi AG’s modern era in the United States began with the Audi 100 in 1970 and the Audi Fox in 1973. Being a classic early adopter the Other Michael had three Foxes early on and I was with him in the fall of 1976 when he totaled the first which, to be honest, was arguably not his fault. Despite extensive damage on all sides (and a broken passenger window courtesy of my head) the doors opened and closed perfectly with that solid German car feel.
A couple of years later my father bought a 1978 Audi Fox GTI,
and in 1984 my soon to be father-in-law bought an Audi 4000 that was passed on to my wife in 1989 – our gateway Audi if you will.
But the spiritual influence for my Audi Coupe, the hook if you will, was its sexy sibling – the rallying Audi quattro that revolutionized the World Rally Championship scene in the first half of the 1980’s.
I vividly remember the first Audi quattro I saw. The Other Michael and I were cycling in Vermont. We were resting at the crest of the Appalachian Gap on Vermont’s Route 17 and gazing west when we heard something approaching.
Fast forward to June, 1991. My wife, Debbie, is pregnant with our first son who would be born the following October. My wife’s 4000 would work as a family car, but I was still driving my 1979 Fiat 124 which was not really up to the task of being a kid hauler. I went looking for an Audi of my own. Used quattros were still out of my price range, but I found a white 1986 Audi Coupe GT.
The first generation Audi Coupe GT, manufactured from 1980 to 1988, was a bit of an amalgamation. It featured the body of the Audi quattro, but without the fender flares. Front wheel drive only in the US, the front of the Coupe was virtually identical to the Audi 4000. From the windshield back things changed however. The Coupe had two long doors and a sloping rear window that stretched almost to the tail which was punctuated with a rear spoiler on a short deck lid.
In Europe the Coupe could be had with both four and five cylinder engines, but US cars were only imported with the normally aspirated 2.2 liter inline five-cylinder engine. First sold in the US in 1981, the car was facelifted in 1984. The largest change was the addition of integrated wrap around bumpers which improved the aerodynamics and enhanced the looks of the Audi.
While some of these second generation Coupes featured digital instruments mine had traditional mechanical gauges. It was a five speed manual with gray leather interior and a sunroof. Interestingly, the sunroof did not fully open. For ventilation it could be cracked open by manually cranking a handle but for true open air motoring one actually removed the sunroof and stored it on a dedicated shelf in the trunk.
Despite its modest 110 horsepower engine and front wheel drive the car handled well and was fun to drive. In 1985 Car and Driver named it the Best Sports Coupe in America. It was a step up from the Volkswagen Scirocco or Toyota Celica, but something less than a Porsche 944 (or Audi quattro!).
I purchased the Coupe for $8,000 which at the time was $6,800 more than I had ever paid for a car. The Audi had just under 60,000 miles on it. While in the past I had done much of my own mechanical work by necessity, beginning with the Coupe and my wife’s 4000 we transitioned to using a real mechanic. We were lucky to discover David at AutoWerke in Rockville, Maryland less than three miles from our house. Over the past quarter century David has serviced all of our German cars and a few outliers as well. David worked to educate me and did his best to see that I adhered to a maintenance plan that assured that moving forward my cars would not suffer the sort of decline I had so often experienced in the past.
Now the ’86 Coupe did not yet have the complexity associated with more modern Audis but it nevertheless followed what I have come to think of as a German car pattern of reliability. Brilliantly engineered, German cars are designed so that they can be maintained forever – the key word being maintained. Maintenance – from a German perspective – encompasses much more than the items shown in a traditional service schedule – tune-ups, fluids, brakes, etc.
German car maintenance incorporates the possibility that items that would never fail in a non-German car may need replacing two or three times. To not attend to these items, to neglect such “maintenance”, is akin to puppy beating. Looking over the maintenance records for the Coupe this morning I noticed, in addition to all the expected items, that there were switches, cables and small hoses replaced multiple times that I’ve never had to replace in non-German cars. It may sound like I’m complaining but perhaps I’m just coming to the insight that German cars, like elite athletes, are endowed with great abilities but are fragile. Maybe you can’t have one without the other. It could be this mechanical yin yang is a real thing.
Over eleven years I added 125,000 miles to the odometer. Repairs over those years almost exactly equaled my original $8,000 purchase price so in the end the car was $16,000 all in. At a cost of $1,455 per year or thirteen cents per mile the car ended up being a bargain. In 2002 I drove the Audi Coupe from Maryland to Kansas and gave it to my nephew who was about to turn sixteen. The car drove as well on the trip to Kansas as it had on the day I purchased it eleven years earlier.
Next week – The ultimate soccer mom car?
Last week – 1975 Saab 99 EMS And 1971 Saab 95 – Different Thinking From Sweden.
(I just found and shot this red curbside Audi coupe this fall, and it was just looking for a suitable post. PN)
Nice story ! You don’t see these on the street anymore. Your description on the maintenance of a german car is 100% spot on. Our fleet includes a 2002 BMW E46 325i with 130k miles and a 1997 Toyota 4Runner with 250k miles. I have replaced quite a few parts on the E46 that I have never had to replace on other vehicles: suspension bushings at 80k miles, oil seals on oil filter housing, cooling system expansion tank (2 times), variable valve timing o-rings, PCM box cooling fan, etc. It is a wonderful car and really nicely engineered, but there is simply a different level of maintenance required to keep it happy. The 4Runner on the other hand is the exact opposite. Very high quality, but not as elegantly engineered–still a pretty basic truck under the skin. It has needed essentially nothing in my 150k miles with it. They are just different animals. The bmw still makes me smile when I drive it and the 4Runner is a tool–a really good one, but not something that you relish driving.
Good for you about sticking with maintance. So many otherwise sturdy German cars suffered an early demise when the second owner did not.
I really like the aero touches added in 84. So many blocky 80s cars really benefited from these minor revisions. I wish GM for example, had tried such a restyle instead of just running away from the look.
The wheels on the red example Paul found curbside I think are from the much rarer next gen Coupe Quattro. That one even got the 4 valve head on the 5.
I think its the second owner issue. If a car is expensive enough the second owner usually has enough money to keep a car in good shape. Inexpensive cars, not so much. The Audi Coupes were right on the line. Many fell into hands that could not or would not make the investment. I also look at up keep of an interesting car for the future as being a patron of the arts.
I’m curious (really curious, not meaning to offend)….in what way do you mean “elegantly engineered” when durability is seemingly so bad? Is it aesthetics, or light weight, or parts doing multiple jobs? I get the sense that it’s more than the handling and body styling that you’re talking about.
I always loved the way German cars drove, but they often seemed to me to be filled with technology that wasn’t yet mature enough for mass production. Having several friends with VWs and Audis, I did way too many parts runs/roadside rescues to ever want to own one….but they were hooked.
Maybe it’s the farmboy in me, but I think of good engineering as doing the job AND not requiring constant repair and replacement.
I concur fully. There are many high-end Japanese cars that are NOT crudely engineered, every bit as complex as German makes. The original Lexus LS400 comes to mind. Yet, they are every bit as reliable as an old Corolla. How is this so?
Compare the ownership experience of an LS versus a 7-Series or S-Class and I’m pretty sure I know which one visited the repair shop the least number of times.
Sure, the Germans may edge out the Asian products at 10-10ths on a windy road, but real life is not the chase scene from Ronin. I stopped drinking the Euro Kool-aid a long time ago.
I’m thinking the same thing. The “otherwise” in “otherwise sturdy German cars” doesn’t matter. If things break and become a nuisance, they’re not sturdy.
Perhaps its another version of the early adopter. I think a certain crowd will appreciate the car to the level of putting up with the shortcomings. I know in the areas of software and other technology I’m often appreciative of new features that aren’t ripe yet as I appreciate where its headed and look to what it will be in the future.
So glad to see another former Coupe owner here! I had a 1981 model (see pic), and like your nephew, it was my first car. I bought it in 1989 for about $3,000 – this was right after Audi resale prices collapsed and used Audis were a great buy.
My car was made before all Audis were luxury cars — it had manual windows & locks, and a very period-specific blue plaid interior. For a first car, it was great: unique looking and great handling, but at 100-hp it wasn’t bound to get me in too much trouble.
Of course, being a first car, and a cheap one at that, it had some issues, but it served me well for several years. Eventually I sold it for a Saab 900, but in retrospect I’m not sure that made too much sense. The Audi was better built.
Incidentally, these cars win the prize for the most well concealed trunk release (I’m assuming it was the same on the ’86 models). The only way to open the trunk was to pull an unmarked lever on the driver’s side door jamb: there’s no way anyone unfamiliar with the car could figure that out!
I didn’t mention it in the article, but I think the lack of fold down seats in the rear for at least pass through storage was a shortcoming. That’s what my Saab 99 had even though it wasn’t the five door hatchback.
I guess I never really thought about the trunk release. It made send to me and their weren’t that many other people driving the car.
Definitely true about the rear seats. If I remember correctly, the gas tank was mounted vertically between the rear seats and the trunk, which made a pass-through impossible.
The trunk release on my Volvo 780 is the same way. It can be opened two ways, but both are inside the car–a lever on the door jamb (next to which is the fuel filler door release) and an electric pushbutton inside the glove box. I appreciate their desire to make it harder for ne’er-do-wells to get in, but it can be a little annoying that there is no access from the trunklid itself!
As with the Buick/Olds Aerobacks, for the longest time I thought these were hatchbacks. Nope.
Great Article. I still miss my 4000 Saloon
I had an Audi Fox for a couple of years. And I agree about the stiffness of the body shell. But with a heater about as effective as a Bic lighter, and massive water leaks (drilled my own drain holes in the floor. It had to go. Next up, a 240 Volvo wagon. Much better car overall, but it too liked to have it’s private parts massaged fairly often. Euro-cars are like beating yourself in the head with a hammer. Feels so good when it stops
The Other Michael reminded me last week that at one point I mentioned to him that it was unfair that I couldn’t just open the hood and throw in $300 in cash. It would be much more efficient.
Wow, thought it was just me (so I refrained from commenting sooner) but as the owner of a 74 Audi Fox and a 76 Ford Pinto, I too often wondered why my Fox was “engineered” the way it was…..German stubborness?
Examples:
In 1974 and a few years after that, VW-Audi products, and perhaps other German cars, persisted in using lug BOLTS. A company in California, I believe, made a small fortune selling wheel studs to convert at least one bolt hole per wheel to a lug nut type fastener so that owners didn’t need 3 hands to change a tire. And on the subject of changing tires, the hubcaps were held on with 4 thin strips that had to be replaced EVERY time a hubcap was removed. Failure to do so wpuld result in a lost hubcap. BTW, the warning to owners about these clips was somewhat buried in the owner’s manual. Cost of the clips in 1974? $0.80 a piece, or about double the price of a gallon of gas back then, and you had to replace FOUR at a whack.
The thermal switch for turning the fan for the radiator ALWAYS seemed to quit just as the odometer would hit a multiple of 10 thousand. In three years of ownership, I replaced that switch 2 or 3 times. After the 1st 10K I learned to watch the water temperature gauge as the odo hit 20K, 30K, 40K….
Don’t get me wrong, this car also had some great, or depending on your point of view, interesting…..features? Like the headlights that could be adjusted without disassembling the front of the car: there were large yellow knobs on the backside of each headlight housing. Or the way that the floor of the trunk could be lit up at night when the parking or headlights were on as the tail lights had a “window” into the trunk.
But then, you also had parking and headlights operated by TWO SEPARATE buttons on the dash next to each other. One button turned on the parking lights only, the other all the lights.
Would I own another German car? Only with the top tier triple A coverage and/or someone else paid the bills, AND I had immediate access to a “backup” car.
Great to drive, not so great to live with.
Sometimes German engineers get things wrong but they love to then over engineer the work around to prove they weren’t wrong in the first place. Case in point, Porsche rear engine cars. 65 years of proving that putting the engine behind the rear axles wasn’t a mistake. And darned if they don’t succeed!
Alpine white really looks good on the Audi coupe. That polar silver mk2 Jetta parked next to it is identical to the ’86 GL I bought in ’91 and still use today with 305k miles along with original 5 speed trans and engine. Clutch, along with rear mainseal, alternator, shifter bushings, clutch cable, radiator, water pump, starter, fuel pump, several fuel pump relays, master cylinder, AC receiver drier, wheel cylinders, wheel bearings, headlamp and wiper switches, mufflers, balljoints, outer tie rod ends, along with a few cv joints, front struts twice and rear shocks once have been replaced by me over the years along with wear items such as brakes, timing belts, tires and batteries. Heater core and in tank lift pump were replaced free under recall. Parts are cheap and most repairs are quite easy to do. The only job I haven’t done myself was the clutch/rear main seal replacement. It is soon going to get new wishbone bushings.
Parts and wear items probably have averaged about $200.00 a year. Paint and interior are still in good shape. Uses a 1/2 quart of oil every 3000 miles. In June it get’s classic plates and then no more yearly registration fee. No smog checks needed since it was 25 years old, but it always passed the first time. No plans to replace this car as long as parts are still cheap and easy to get, and since they were built until 2013 in China, this won’t be a problem for years to come.
If you can do most of the repairs yourself, you really can keep an old German built mk2 VW going for a long time.
I always wanted an Audi Coupe, great looking car.
And also drivers side window regulator and a few outer door handles. Paid 2000 dollars for the car, so at this point have about $7000 in it in total.
Yes, I’m remembering the window switches and the door handles. The Jetta in the background either belonged to the Other Michael or Andy (shown holding up his hands in the background). Michael had two or three Jetta’s – basically he would go with Jetta’s version of the GTI (GTA?). Eventually he migrated over to quattros – find out why next week.
The Jetta GLI was the GTI version. Power windows were best avoided on mk2’s. I’ll be sure to check out next weeks COAL.
What if you could have a car built like a high-end bicycle. End user specs out frame, gears, brakes, etc to his taste. You start out with a German body, brakes and suspension, put in US HVAC, and drop ship it to Toyota for electrical, accessories and final paint and trim.
It’s been done before, sort of.
http://jalopnik.com/this-volkswagen-is-a-nissan-1591951125
The folklore has it that Nissan’s version was improved in many ways.
These were also built in China, along with the Mk2 Jetta. But it was a VW/SAIC joint venture car plant for the Santana and VW/FAW plant for the Jetta. I doubt they were better than their German counterparts.
But a Nissan built Santana does seem to be the best of both worlds!
That makes so much sense. Let’s assume that it will happen in the near future when 3-D printing will allow such bespoke vehicles for the masses.
Wow: both your father and your father in law were driving Audi! My son would say:”they’ve got game!”
My brother had an Audi 80 (Fox) for a year or two. I was surprised by the heavy under steer. Non the less it was a very nice driving machine.
I kind of get what you say about maintenance and german cars. my one and only experience was with a 91 jetta diesel.
I really found the build quality amazing. it felt like a bank vault on wheels. there were also some exceptionally smart ideas in the layout. could not lock the drivers door without the key, a switch to turn the trunk light off when needed, emergency flasher that a 2 year old could find easy and so on. I was on the road a lot at that time and bought it with 160,000km and sold it with 345,000km on it 3 and a half years later so it was worked!
the flip side of that was those occasions it needed maintenance, it needed MAINTENANCE!!!!! I was used to having a buddy I could call on and spending 50 bucks here and maybe a 100 bucks there. none of my friends would touch it and even the mechanic I frequented was not thrilled. I found a vw “specialist” and quickly learned the only place to spend under a 100 on that car was the gas tank!
it fit my life at that time but I would have serious questions about getting another one for my day to day life.
Okay, reflex comments are probably best thought about for a while, but not this time. Comments about German engineering make me think of a comparison between the German Tiger tank and US Sherman tank. The Tiger was supposedly so precisely engineered and constructed that they often would not start in the bitterly cold Russian winter. The engine tolerances were so tight they just wouldn’t move until their crew build a fire under the engine to pre-heat it. No block heaters on the Eastern Front. On the other hand, Sherman tanks were supposed to have very loose tolerances and probably would have had very poor durability. In WW2 the average life expectancy of a tank was something like 60 days (no doubt that number is wrong, but it makes the point) so the engineering and the durability of the Tiger was never realized due to its inevitable premature destruction, especially those days when it couldn’t start to do battle.
As I recall, my 1973 and 1974 Fox had a switch that turned on all the lights. If you pushed a second switch, it left only the running lights lit. It seems to me the 1975 was a different arrangement.
Understeer? Yeah, lots of it. Once you replaced the little stock front sway bar with a big MF’ing one instead, and ADDED a rear one (drilling required,) you could actually achieve neutral handling. Addco sway bars as I recall. It wasn’t hard to make the suspension faster than the engine, especially with its meager 70 horsepower.
Again a fascinating account from the parallel world. Being in Europe my view and experience of these and other Audis is very different – the 5 cyl. cars were famous here for their reliability. My 88 100 was still going strong when I foolishly gave it up with 230,000 Km on the clock. I don’t know but maybe people have a different comprehension of the meaning of “maintenance” over in the US; we find nothing strange with on-going or preventive maintenance; changing timing belts on time, keeping to a rigorous fluid change regime and – yes – replacing consumables on a when and if basis was something I found acceptable (as opposed to catastrophic component failures and bad design/engineering features). So yes when the steering rack developed a leak at 180,000 Km I bought a used one from a friend and changed it during an afternoon; similar time was needed for timing belt/adjuster idler/water pump (all told back then, € 90). Nothing the home mechanic cannot do alone. Headlining dropping off? € 300 to have a new one made by a friend. Oh: and unlike your fabled Japanese cars from the same period, Audis like the T44 100 do NOT RUST (zinc layered bodywork). In my opinion, rust repairs are the most time-consuming, expensive things you can be burdened with on any car (and I have restored cars for living, so I should know).
So I really don’t understand the bad rap _older_ German cars get in the US (same for Mk. I, II and III Golf/Rabbit, or the Passat/Dasher/Santana, vehicular cockroaches here). The current crop… Hmmm. VW has dropped the level even in Europe so there’s no excuse there, but my understanding is that Audi has not been performing badly in the recent surveys.
Returning to the Coupe, those are now rare here (Austria), perhaps due to the fact they make a very good starting point for guys using the body to create an Ur-Quatro or even cutting and shutting to make Quatro Sport replica (an Audi guru friend of mine is doing just that at the moment). There was of course the Coupe Quatro, a 4×4 not turbo model – did you not get it in the US?
I had a brief infatuation with these in 1984-85. In the end, a new one proved to be beyond my budget, as it was quite expensive, especially for the level of power on offer. I know now that it and I would not have had a happy relationship, given that I had cut my teeth on yank tanks, and had developed my opinions on maintenance from them. But all these years later, there is still some mysterious something about these that speaks to me.
I’ve always been a fan of these coupes–the Quattro version especially but these GT coupes as well. It’s a very attractive shape, though it’s a bit of a shame that we didn’t get the more attractive Euro lamps. A friend in college had one of the next generation Coupe Quattros–really fun car, until he was rear-ended in 2003. Scrapped over the cost of a rear bumper/cover and taillights, a shame for what had been a very nice CQ.
We had an Audi in our family for a while. My Dad was not ready for the concept of German maintenance, however, with predictable results. Personally I still like ’em.