This is the forgotten one, the doer, the unstoppable, the sensibly solid one, the one for the people. A life abbreviated, an experiment cut short, a desire unfulfilled. I, the big Audi fan, always wanted one of these close cousins but it never happened and now I’m more or less resigned to it being too late to have one.
There was never one available when I’ve had the time or the budget and I’ve never had the time or the budget when one was available. This one was placed in this spot just moments before I walked through this parts heaven’s pearly chainlink gates as they opened and the sun shone down uponst the hallowed ground. I would have kneeled and genuflected but there’s no way am I going to get on that ground, it’s filthy.
So pictures and some kind words will have to do to console myself with. Sold between 1986 and 1988, our 1987 is from the middle of the run and a curious little experiment wherein VW already had the Quantum which was basically an Audi 4000 under the skin and Audi had their Quattro AWD system, so like peanut butter and chocolate they jammed it all together under the wagon version’s skin and presto, a (sort of) budget AWD wagon for VW.
Audi had the 5000 Avant in naturally aspirated and turbo form but those were pricey items. Audi also had the 4000 but only in sedan form. We never got the Coupe Quattro except in Turbo Quattro form but those were gone after 1986 and as costly as a Porsche 911 anyway. So a regular AWD wagon from VW wouldn’t really step on anyone’s toes and be pretty much a parts bin special, there was never a Quantum Syncro sedan even though that would have been even easier to build.
Like the 4000Q, the Quantum Syncro got the inline 5-cylinder Audi engine that was already being used in the regular Quantum GL5 trim level, but now added the full time AWD Quattro system to it. Blessed with a full time 50/50 split the Quantum also had the lockable center and rear differentials that would help to make Quattros legendary in the winter and snow, especially here in Colorado.
Of course, that 2.2liter 5-cylinder only puts out 115hp (at sea level) which is fine when you are descending I-70 from the Rockies back down to Denver but not as great when you are climbing up it. However, the grumbly little 5 eventually will climb any mountain, ford any stream, and then beg to do it again, eager, delightfully vocal, and torquey when paired with the 5-speed (the only transmission offered).
In later years people have swapped all kinds of engines from the extended family into the Syncro from 10V turbo 5’s to the Audi 200 and Audi S4/S6’s 20V Turbo 5 to that evergreen favorite of the VW/Audi tuner scene, the Audi 1.8T 4cylinder from the turn of the century. All fit with ease and can generally be made to run very well with significantly more power and fun with relatively little fuss.
There’s the 5-speed and ahead of it the selector for the diffs, pull out to the first stop for the center diff and all the way out to lock the rear one in conjunction with the center one. Simple and effective, the car pretty much goes from nearly unstoppable to completely unstoppable.
The biggest difference between this and the Audi sedan lies under the rear load floor where the suspension in this case utilizes torsion bars in order to have a lower floor. Roomy and spacious, there’s a reason the Quantum is so beloved in Germany (always known as the Passat over there).
It’s a bummer the wheels were already gone on this one, but the machined faces with black pockets were the exact same 14-inchers as offered on the 1983/1984 VW GTI and looked great against the chiseled bodywork with all the black trim. Interestingly VW seems to have been the first with the black plastic around the fenders (but started it on the GTI of all things) that everything that even remotely wants to look rugged and 4WD these days sports. Come to think of it, machined faces with black pockets was/is a popular wheel trend yet again too.
As with Audis of the day, there really wasn’t anything particularly shouty to advertise the actual capability beneath the skin, you had to be “in the know” to realize what was going on here.
The inside is similarly no-nonsense, bordering on spartan, but with nice touches such as the optional sports seats here and the steering wheel, again lifted straight from the GTI.
Occupants in the back had decent legroom, and the velour was very comfortable and extremely hard-wearing. The seats of course flip down to create a long and flat load floor.
This one looks to have been towed here using the seatbelt to keep the wheels more or less in place. Someone has picked over a few bits before it got here too, as a few switches are missing. This dashboard design worked quite well with the radio and HVAC bits placed very high, not really any blockier than today’s dashboards with the tablet-looking things perched in the same area.
A VW-branded Blaupunkt stereo cassette player, air-conditioning, and simple slider controls. Enough to keep your inner engineer busy adjusting stuff even if those vents don’t look really large enough to get a big volume of fresh air coming through.
This is pretty much the same gauge cluster that every VW got back then with the single blinking green light if a signal is on, a few red warning bulbs, blue high beam indicator and row of black blanks below. A digital clock at the bottom and an “economy upshift” suggestion light at top. The 151,486 mileage is certainly disappointing, this thing was cut down in the prime of its life (or the VDO odometer is broken, certainly a possibility), at that mileage it’s just broken in!
I think the reason it’s here is due to an apparent rear impact that pushed the tailgage in and smashed the rear lights. As much as there is a cult following for these, actual street value is minimal these days so that’d surely send it here. This one’s color is “Stratos Blue”, but the Syncro was also available in Tornado Red, Charcoal Gray, White, and Silver.
Back in 1987, when this was new, it wasn’t cheap being assembled in West Germany. We got lucky with this one, as it came with the full documentation package.
This one was sold on January 23, 1988 by Manny Lucero at Santa Fe World Automotive Market, proud purveyors of VW, Porsche, Audi, Isuzu, Subaru, and BMW according to the business card. Sounds like my kind of place, the only one of those I haven’t owned would be the BMW. It looks like the VW battery crapped out in October 1990, as that is when the Sears Battery Warranty is punched, but it appears the VW was sitting on the lot unsold for at least six months. The owner faithfully went back to the dealer for service until the last stamp in the booklet at 53674 miles on October 3, 1994, who knows what happened after that, beyond it ending up here in Denver, Colorado. Maybe the original owner is a Curbivore and will recognize his ride…
But we also have the Monroney! $18,870 was the base price, the only options were the Stratos Blue Clearcoat Metallic paint color for $160 and the Sport Seats for $265. Destination charge was $320 (wow, that’s gone up these days!) for a grand total of $19,615 which was quite a sum for 1987, equating to $45,615 today. I suppose that makes sense, midsize AWD wagons like the Audi A4 Allroad or Volvo V60XC start at right around that price today. The closest things that VW offers are the Tiguan CUV which tops out below that and the Atlas CUV, for which you have to really try and push most of the buttons to get up that high in price.
The EPA fuel mileage is atrocious though for something that weighs around 2700 pounds, at 17City and 21Highway. Yes I know the scale was different but that’s fairly poor V8 Crew Cab Pickup mileage these days. I don’t know about those good old days…
Of course there’s also the dealer add-on sticker, or as titled here, the “Add-A-Tag – Protecting The Consumer” – yeah, more like jamming it to the consumer with an additional $145 for a tacky pinstripe, $289 for Dealer Prep which should already be included, that’s called overhead, and then the Total Protect Package for a whopping $589 ($1370 today!) which didn’t do much when beaten down from behind by some jacked-up pickup truck. I hope Manny got a nice cut of that.
I still like these a lot but the time for me with one has passed, my interests have moved on and I’m now more intrigued by other things. But of course I’ll still check Craigslist before I turn the lights off this evening as you never know if one’s out there, just in case…Maybe a red one.
That rear damage looks like it happened on the yard. Being nudged into place by the tines of the forklift perhaps? You are right about those center vents. They did not move enough air and would not quite angle enough to reach the driver, at least not on mom’s ’83 sedan. when driving, I would reach out and touch the edge of the dash with my right hand to the air would travel up my arm to cool me off. Her car was the same color as this Syncro wagon but with the standard Rabbit 1.7L 4 cylinder. The car felt very solid and well built. It was roomy, cruised nicely on the highway and was comfortable to drive for hours. It felt like a budget Mercedes. It also had the performance of a 240D Mercedes! That poor little motor with so much car to lug around couldn’t pull the skin off a pudding. As I recall, parts and service were pretty pricey as well. Still, it was a much better car than the Renault Alliance that preceded it.
You would really not have liked my ’84 Quantum wagon with the 68-hp 1.6 turbodiesel. I didn’t like it myself, but I felt I needed good mileage at the time.
The rear suspension control arms on the Quantum Syncro were shared with no other VAG product. When I was in the market for an Audi 4000 quattro, I had an opportunity to buy a Quantrum Syncro. I took a pass on it partly for this reason.
P.S. Heyyyy, looks like the comment editor is back! 🙂
Rear Suspension – Did replacement of rear shocks on sedan require R&R of rear window?
The damage is a bit strange, especially since the bumper appears undamaged. I doubt pushing it with the forklift would have damaged the taillights unless someone was being particularly careless, and I would hope whoever manhandles the cars in the yard would at least try to not damage parts that someone is likely to need like that. That there’s a spare taillight in the back suggests that perhaps there was some consideration for repairing it at some point. It could also be someone backed it into something like a flatbed, but it’s hard to say.
My parents leased one of these, also a 1987, when I was barely old enough to remember it. It was white, had the cassette player, and the most I remember with it was the time we did a long road trip in it to Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas to visit relatives. I remember listening to various tapes my parents had recorded from their record collection the whole trip.
While my parents considered it a very fun car to drive, they were less happy about the reliability problems and the dealer experience. They turned it in at the end of the lease, went to the Plymouth dealer and leased a Grand Voyager as their next vehicle. Prior to the Quantum, they had several Beetles, a Rabbit, and a Bus, but the Quantum was the last Volkswagon they had.
I’ve always liked the Quantum’s clean, simple styling, and this is one vehicle I’ve always looked for out in the wild, but at least in my area they were extremely rare and it was very uncommon to spot one.
I will admit to a fondness for this car too, although not enough of one to start looking for them online. These things were really expensive in their day, when a Camry or Accord offered so much more content for less money – looking at the price to content ratio on these, it is no wonder they sold so poorly. You really had to love the “German-ness” of these to pay the premium. And these really did have all the things I loved about German cars in those days, like the rock-solid feeling of the body.
That instrument cluster looks just like the one in my 85 GTI – there have been few things I hated more than that orange “upshift light”. “Yes, I know I could upshift now to eke a little more economy out of my mini-performance car, however I choose not to” played in my head at least three times after every traffic light during the entire time I drove the thing.
You didn’t mention the factory-fresh spare tire!
I’ve had horrible luck with those upshift lights. I bought a near new ’82 Rabbit and it was always flashing at me, until one day, it didn’t. The dealer replaced the Upshift light relay under warranty, and it worked for a few months, then that one quit too, I just gave up. Fast forward a few years, I now have an ’85 Jetta, that light came one exactly ONCE in 6 years of ownership! I didn’t even know it was so equipped.
It was a classic Kraut thing. After the first energy crsis, there was a big public education campaign to encourage drivers to accelerate by using lots of throttle (to reduce pumping losses) but also upshift early. That was shown to be the most efficient way to get up to speed.
Sure enough, in my trips back to Europe, drivers in Germany and Austria mostly did drive that way: very aggressive on the throttle, but quick upshifts. It became the norm, and also taught in driver’s ed.
The upshift light was a way to reinforce that. Very Teutonic indeed: “you vill upshift when the light comes on!”
I think those upshift lights became common in a lot of stick shift cars lately. My 2007 Focus has one, as several newer cars today. My wife had a 1986 or so Plymouth Turismo with provisions for one, but Chrysler never put one in. I typically ignore mine. It encourages you to shift up well below the “sweet spot” of the engine.
My ’86 GTi of course had one as well.
I didn’t get why Consumer Reports used to rag on VW for having a single indicator on the dash for the direction of the turn signals. Really, it is just a reminder that the signals are on, do you really need to be told which direction you put the lever in, right or left? They eventually capitulated (sold out) and my 2000 Golf has 2 turn signal indicators like every other car.
I really like the dash on these Quantums, for some reason…even though half of it as mentioned is identical to that of my ’86 GTi (but it wasn’t a bad panel). Really like the high up radio and heater controls, and super really like the high upright seating. The odometer on my GTi was problematic, it had multiple odometers plus a trip computer, but there was a box in the engine compartment where the speedo cable went in that seemed to be stripped on just about every one of them, so my GTi only sometimes registered mileage…only a bit more than 103K when I sold it in 2000. In retrospect I liked the high seating of the A1, A2, and A3 VWs
and they sold out for the A4 (which I currently own) and made it much lower…plus radio down low on the center stack.
I never had a Quantum, nor a Passat, but my Uncle’s favorite car was an ’84 Audi 4000….and he later owned a ’99 Passat….now he’s got a BMW, his wife a Lexus…his first car was my Grandfather’s 1951 Chrysler Windsor, when that died, he bought a new 1969 Ford LTD 4 door hardtop.
That is pretty weird. My ’79 Fiat Strata (Ritmo) just had 1 turn indicator too. I never had a problem with that either.
Oops. Strada. I can’t edit.
Wow that’s cool, zwep. I have a 1987 sedan, here in Brazil called santana, it refers precisely to the wind that runs through california, but in california the car arrived under another name… In my VW this feature besides the gear shift light has a pointer indicating consumption, in fact a vacuumometer only true in 5th gear. This on-board computer you mentioned was never used in any VW here in Brazil, perhaps because it only had the first engine with injection in 1991, and only in 1994 did something similar to the system of this gl5 arrive, when it was no longer that platform B32. Likewise, in the “squares” of VW do Brasil, this five-cylinder engine, turbocharger or system of 4 valves per cylinder never arrived. Interesting Bob G, because here in Brazil we had a Fiat Strada that has lasted with great success from 1998 until today! Here is a small pickup derived from the fiat punto. All variants of this bodywork have already been closed here, but this pickup continued until 2021, and has recently given its name to a larger platform utility based on products from the fiat/crysler joint venture.
Terrific find. This was hot stuff in its time. The big mistake was to not figure out how to lower its price and take on the Subaru wagon head-on. This was the Outback of its time, but just much too expensive.
I saw a quantum wagon in traffic just a coupe of days ago. Could not tell if it was a Syncro or not.
Yes I know the scale was different
I’m not sure what you mean by that. I assume you mean that mileage in general was lower back then. Which it was.
I remember when the quattro first came out reading in ams where Piech claimed it got as good or better mileage than the FWD versions. He had some kind of cockamamie explanation with a lot of technical jargon, but it sounded like BS to me. The extra weight and friction was bound to create an efficiency penalty. That guy was a piece of work.
I meant that I am under the impression that the rating system to determine the mileage has changed over the years so that a car that got a 30mpg rating on the sticker in 1987 would not get a 30mpg rating the way it’s determined today. I could be mistaken.
Yeah, Piech’s explanation doesn’t pass the smell test. The only possible way might be on a curvy and slippery road where there might be less need to slow for corners as much and thus be able to maintain a more steady overall speed. There’s a reason some of the current “quattro” cars use a version that decouples the rear axle when not needed for traction.
Doh!
The epa has a page where one can compare the old and adjusted mileage. In this case, the Quantum Syncro would be adjusted down to 15/20/17.
Which is pretty bad, especially considering it’s the same us our pig of a ’85 Cherokee with the 2.8 V6 and 3-speed automatic. It rarely got better than 16 mpg in the real world.
It’s a good thing gas was so cheap, almost as cheap as now! I can console myself with that horrible fuel mileage then, the Hellcat Redeye did just as well…
What was the old joke about the inline5? – All the power of a 4, with the fuel economy of a 6…
I had a 1984 Audi 4000S quattro, which was very similar mechanically to the Syncro wagon. I never got worse than 19 mpg on a tank and often calculated about 24 mpg on highway trips conducted at speeds that made 70 mph seem like a crawl when I was caught up in traffic. The gasoline available was much better then though, so perhaps that explains why the car performed better than its current adjusted MPG value. Keep in mind that the EPA scores that are adjusted down for window stickers are measured using 100% real gasoline.
My 88 Quatto sedan usually got 17-20mpg. DON’T FORGET – German Speedometer/Odometer usually read +10%.
The 1988 80/90 quattro was a heavier car with a bigger engine. German speedometers read high, but their odometers are as accurate as anyone’s. Honda learned the hard way that odometers in the US need to be well within the allowable +/- 4% to avoid a lawsuit and settlement. I put hundreds of thousands of miles on two Audis, a BMW, a Porsche and a VW during the ’80s and early ’90s, and I can tell you that the odometers didn’t vary from the mileposts and tenth of a mileposts over my hundred and thirty mile regular route by more than five tenths of a mile.
I absolutely loved these — a Quantum Syncro wagon was my dream family car of the 1980s, in part because of its extreme anonymity.
And you’re so right about the locking center differential as taking this type of car from nearly unstoppable to completely unstoppable. I had a locking center diff. in my Mazda 323GTX, and used it rarely, but that car could through snow that seemed unimaginable. I did manage to get it stuck once though, by plowing into a snowbank. Even the locking differential couldn’t get me unstuck — had to use a shovel instead.
And yes, that was expensive. Our ’85 Cherokee, with lots of options (V6, auto, full-time 4WD, and a bunch of convenience packages) was $16k, which was hardly a bargain.
Yes, my Mom’s 85 Crown Vic that was nicely but not obscenely equipped stickered at $14k and she bought it late in the model year for about $12.5. Which was right about where the sticker was on the VW GTI I bought that same year.
Shame it’s too far away, a friend of mine here in Austria has its twin, now fitted with a 20V Turbo engine modified to about 500 hp, he would have loved this as spares car. They were not common here either, most people wanting a 4X4 wagon from VAG going for Audi’s products back then.
I drove one of these around ’99. I even had a parts car, because I heard that body parts like headlights were unobtainable. On many levels, I loved that car. It had the best driving position I’ve ever experienced: seats, wheel position, pedals, visibility, all worked from my non-standard frame. Like my Audi 4000 Quattro, it felt unique at cruising speed, immensely stable. With the diff lock knob pulled, it tracked like a train, with the on-center steadiness of a gyroscope. Locking the center differential was like lashing the ship;s wheel to the mast, locking the car on its bearing. And with the long, boxy wagon design, it had tremendous utility.
Downsides? Fuel economy, for one. Lack of power. But that wasn’t why the westbound haul up I-70 was an ordeal. I enjoy working an engine and gearbox for maximum torque, but not when it’s overheating. It usually was, because fitting that long block lengthwise in front of the axles meant there was only room for half a radiator! Check that underhood photo. I can’t think of another modern car with such a skimpy cooling system. The air conditioning was feeble, too.
I’d love to have one of these around for those big snow days, and for utility tasks. Never to be driven above 70 degrees…
I had an 84 quantum, paid $1400 for it in 92. We called it Adolf, loved the size and nothing else.Under powered, bad electrical ,mechanics would look at the 5 cylinders and give up, But it was the best $1400 ever spent on a car
My 84.5 Scirroco Wolfsburg Ed. had the same instrument cluster and the lower row of fake LEDs didn’t last long. I installed a Uniden remote radar detector with the inside unit under the dash, drilled out the fake LEDs and wired some LEDs from Radio Shack back to the unit. Totally hidden system.
Owned a 1984 Quantum sedan in LA. Overheated constantly. Was at wits end over it when a helpful senior citizen ran a stop sign in front of me and I broadsided him. My car was totaled, his 70’s Chevy Nova barely had a dent. I’m not even sure he would have stopped, but a cop was behind me.
Less than 5000 of these wonderful cars (Synchros) were sold in the US. I used to own what I believe was the only one sold new in Jacksonville FL. Bought it used, loved it dearly and unobtanium parts finally killed off my efforts to keep it running. During the 4 years I owned it, I moved to WV for a short miserable time in my life and found out how 34 inches of snow barely even slowed it down. Did get it stuck once in a snowbank but the two locking diffs made child’s play of getting it out. It handled mountain roads, corners and mild off-roading surprisingly well for it’s limitations. Would love to own another but it would likely require 2 or 3 parts cars to keep it on the road.
Hello greetings!! I have a 1987 sedan, in that same color, here in Brazil called Santana!! I love seeing these syncro versions!! The independent rear suspension must be very interesting. If this gem were around here it would be very easy to recover, the pieces that I noticed missing or broken were used in the quantuns here. It would be a success to recover it and run around here, this audi quattro syncro system is very interesting, the 5-cylinder engine with its injection system that never came here, the cruise control, but also finishing items such as the grille set / headlights, the air conditioning control, the cover on the fenders, the brake light, the internal lever of the chrome doors, and the interior of the trunk. A few items such as the front, the instruments, the ventilation vents, the finish of the trunk and the lack of shiny friezes are inferior to the most luxurious model here, it is understandable that VW directs a product to the daily life of someone who does not wants to be stopped by a frozen floor, but I don’t understand the trunk without a cover, if around here even the simplest versions have always given the option of insulating the trunk from the passenger compartment, it seems that they focused on an almost commercial customer. Around here, the VW consumer in this range who needed a van had the Parati (a fox with an extended trunk) also with luggage cover even in the simplest. Here, the b2 platform was produced until 1991, with sedan and station wagon versions and aimed at the luxury consumer. Interestingly, it kept the b1 platform in the fastback version called “passat” until 1989. Thanks for the publication!!