Our family had four of these, the Audi 100, the first generation of Audi’s larger sedan (C1 generation, current model now called A6). Two in Germany, and two more over here in Los Angeles, the first of which followed an Audi Super 90 and a DKW before that. All were acquired used; even in Germany a used Audi is a better value than new. Our first 100 died an inglorious death on the Autobahn while my Dad was driving it on a business trip when I was very little. The second was sold when we moved here but was rusty anyway. The third (a ’74) was rear-ended very badly in L.A. traffic and the fourth (a ’71) never seemed to run correctly. After that one I think either my Dad was tired of them or there were no more to be found in Los Angeles and he never owned another Audi.
And they’ve been somewhat rare finds over here ever since. Until today, that is, when I came across this final-year example outfitted pretty much the way ours were. We never had a silver one though, the German ones were both blue (one with a red interior) and the first US one was white with the last one being a light blue.
The 100 was Audi’s most successful model after being introduced late in 1968 and was produced in four door form over 825,000 times. There was also a 2-door version of the sedan and of course the 100 Coupe which was never officially sold in the US. Ours were all four door versions.
The ones we had in Germany as well as the ’71 we had here all had the smaller, prettier bumpers; for 1974 these larger safety bumpers were fitted and they certainly give it a bit of a bumper-car look, easily extending the dimensions of the car by several inches in both length and width. Audi used to actually put their name on their cars back then and into the 1990’s (at least on the front door badges at the end) but now you’ll be hard pressed to actually see anything but the four rings on the back as well as the model designation.
It was named “100” for its horsepower output upon introduction, but that changed up and down a bit depending on year and market. The US version started on a high note here in 1970 with a 115hp 1.8l unit, mounted longitudinally as are all “real” Audis (i.e. chassis not shared with VW) even today. Even back then though most of the engine was ahead of the front axle, giving it a 60/40 front/rear weight distribution. Note the side mounted radiator here, as continued with the later generations. A couple of years later the engine was enlarged to a 1.9l unit but power was dropped to 91hp, and then rose back to 95hp for 1975 once fuel injection was fitted. As with all Audis prior to the 1980’s introduction of quattro AWD, this one is FWD as well.
Also note the large frosty AC unit towards the back of the bay. Yes, this one has AC, which was one of the more common problematic items with this car back in the day. This was early on a very frosty morning, Audi can only wish that this unit produced air this cold.
Back in the pre-quattro days one got a “Fuel Injection” badge to show off Audi’s technological might. The ones we owned curiously were all automatics, and they got a small “Automatic” badge under the right side model designation, much like some cars would get a “5-speed” badge if so fitted. One of those trans-continental differences I suppose as automatics of any kind were somewhat rare in Germany back then, certainly more so than over here.
It would have been right up there below the numbers. That 100LS script looks very much like the Mercedes ones, come to think of it. Perhaps due to Mercedes owning Audi not too many years prior to this, a curious bit of history that most Audi owners have no knowledge of. The “D” sticker/sign is right where we always had ours in Germany too, nowadays it’s incorporated into the license plate itself.
Yes, I am sort of dancing around the fact that I don’t have a picture of the inside of the trunk to share. I did take one but apparently moved on before the picture was captured so it was more a picture of the dirt on the ground (which is also visible here if you’re interested). The trunk is in fact quite spacious, we used to take these cars on six-week vacations to Yugoslavia and multi-week trips to England and seemed to fit everything in it that a family of four needed back in the 1970’s.
That brings up an interesting point (for me at least) – I’ve likely spent more cumulative time in the back seat area of Audi 100s than any other car. The back seat cushion is normally lower than this one, I just nudged it sort of back into place here. But there was plenty of room in the back and in the days before seatbelts my brother and I used to get quite rowdy back here – until of course eventually the infamous blindly flailing arm would emerge from the front with dire warnings about not making anyone stop this car and so forth. Good times.
If you can look beyond the ravages of time, that dashboard is almost the spitting image of a Tesla Model 3! Well, at least it has the continuous wood strip all the way across. For the 1970’s this is quite modern, note that the dash is fairly light visually and not at all imposing. And cracked just like ours were.
Even the gauge cluster has a wood veneer around it and of course a clock front and center. No tachometer on this one though, but since this one IS an automatic it has the indicator and then a fairly complete set of auxiliary info and lights. I don’t recall the indicator on the German ones though, as the floor shift mechanism has the legend right next to the positions (barely visible in the first interior shot above) and would light up the selected gear initial or numeral, thus (theoretically) negating the need for a redundant display on the dashboard.
I found it interesting how they used the blanks for more gauges to fit the AC controls into, that’s fairly clever but shows how the car doesn’t seem to have been really engineered from the start to offer Air Conditioning.
Jeez, the keys are even still in it and judging by the condition of the key ring this car was stored in a damp-ish environment for quite a few years before arriving here.
The build tag is a little odd in that it does not in fact have the build date on it. It is supposed to be in the upper right hand corner and would be the same type of punched dot format as the VIN at the bottom. There was a supplemental emissions tag that did state it conformed to the 1977 year so that at least was confirmed. My data indicates that the last 100 built of this generation had the VIN ending in 006350 as opposed to this one’s 005715, note that by this time the C2 generation Audi 5000 (100 elsewhere) was already being produced.
These cars generally aren’t fondly remembered over here in the US, they had various issues, and apparently weren’t easy to have fixed by your average mechanic, but in Germany they were considered pretty good cars overall. While at the time suffering a bit from a “fuddy-duddy” image over there, Audi has certainly made quite a few strides (in various directions?) over the last half-century but this is the car that pretty much started things off over here at least.
The ad above is for a 1972 model and while perhaps a trifle over the top, certainly gets right to the point regarding the car’s attributes. I don’t know if it can be rightly compared directly with any of the others, but it isn’t incorrect in regard to the facts presented and was probably a good way to help introduce the car over here.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1970 Audi 100LS – Ingolstadt’s Table Setter by The Professor
Cohort Capsule: 1973 Audi 100LS – Keep It Beautiful by Perry Shoar
I looked at buying one of these in Donnybrook WA to replace a dying Datsun 180B however the automatic trans seemed to be extra slushy on the test drive so the deal never went ahead the Audi was cheap real cheap but not new transmission cheap, an oil burning Mitsubishi Sigma solved my transport issues and while that car was a rolling time bomb it barely missed a beat for 10 months.
Thanks to our great environmental policy here in Holland NOT junkyards are getting extinct, I mean real junkyards where you could even find the odd Panhard or Triumph or Rover overgrown with weeds somewhere on the side of the yard.
Today thanks to us Dutch who will save the planet on our own, scrapyards are restricted and need to have a vast documentation of every car that is lying around in the yard, this means that cars are quickly dismantled and send to the crushers.
But remember, this tiny pin dot in Northern Europe will save the world and as long as we shall pay hughe amount for fuel and road tax and our speed lime which was 130 km/h has been lowered to 100 km/h we will succeed in the end !
The Audi 100 was (besides all those other cars) sold as a bargain Mercedes. It did resemble a Mercedes E class sedan inside and out. Then, like VW Rabbits, it quickly got a reputation for immediately falling apart but with repairs costing multiples of Rabbit repairs. My sister’s succession of VW Rabbit/Golf’s were pretty much the same. Seemed nice, broke a lot as soon as the warranty was over (and before), expensive repairs.
Didn’t there use to be an edit function here that lasted for ten minutes or so? Not today so that comment will have to stand as is.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought it looked very Mercedes-ish. I remember thinking that when they came out. But although the resemblance was there, they looked lighter and more agile, probably because of the deeper windows. The bloke I bought my first car off had an Audi; although uncommon in Australia at the time, they had a reputation for being troublesome even back then. While I admired his choice of car for it’s abilities, I had to wonder. Maybe mechanics’ unfamiliarity with the breed; many European cars suffered from poor parts and service backup in those days – and maybe still.
J I M
Y O U R E S C A R I N G M E
Mom had a light red ’71 100 that I don’t remember the specific model of. Had the EA827 as standard and the four speed. Ran like a german clock, but somehow she managed to blow the engine on 151st. Downgraded to a ’73 Pinto after. Shame.
D a v e – D o n ‘ t t u r n a r o u n d I ‘ m i n t h e h o u s e 🙂
o h n o
You can’t get in the house! Unless my guard Grand Am rolled down the driveway again.
Some friends of mine back then had one of these. After only a couple of years it was traded in (at a huge loss I’m guessing) on an Acura – whatever the larger one was called then. I think that represented the typical pattern for these. Then with the next Audi came the unintended acceleration issue (no doubt all driver error) with the faked 60 Minutes report.
Some Toyotas like Priuses I think had this issue more recently. Its kind of amazing how so many people don’t think of the obvious – shift into neutral! You don’t even have to hold down the button or anything. Just (most cars) push the lever forward a notch. If you can’t figure out how to do that you could turn the engine off. Guess what, the brakes will still work for a full stop (and still work after that with more pressure) and the steering will only get harder but still work.
Audi has come a long way since then.
This car was long out of production when Acura debuted for ‘86. You’re thinking of the Audi 5000 which was the subject of the 60 Minutes story and sold alongside the Acura Legend which was an infinitely easier car to live with.
Wow — quite a find! I love examining cars from what I call Audi’s pre-luxury era… partly because my first car was an ’81 Audi Coupe, which I loved. I don’t ever remember a time when these 100LS’s were common, so even seeing one in a junkyard is astounding (though sad, of course).
Regarding the Fuel Injection badge, that was something I found odd about my ’81 — the F.I. badge was much bigger than the discreet one on this featured car, and by 1989 when I bought it, fuel injection was hardly novel.
In the mid/late 1970s when this car was made, Audi’s US range consisted of the 100 and the Fox. I have a feeling that after the Fox came along, Audi’s marketing just let the 100 coast along without many improvements or promotion. I suspect that these later-year 100LS’s were mighty rare.
Quite a few of the ’77’s weren’t sold until ’78.
You’re right, your ’81 coupe did have that large script (but flat lettered) FI badge at the rear, I’d forgotten about that. Not to worry though, many GM cars (Firebird comes to mind) had Fuel Injection badges on their door handles of all places well into the mid/late ’80’s…
Great find! It was always an ambition of mine to find a 100 for CC. I gave up on that a while back. But you never know…
I had forgotten about your family having all of four of them. And having two automatics in Germany is a bit unusual, as the take rate back then on automatics there must have been quite low.
The 100 came out during the summer I spent in Innsbruck in 1969. I vividly remember seeing it on the covers of ams and lots of other magazines. It was a big deal: Audi was clearly going head to head with MB and BMW. It took a while, but they got there too.
A couple at the tv station in LA had a 2-door 100LS. Nice car, but like so many of them, it was giveng them increasing problems. I can’t remember if it died or what, but it was eventually replaced by a Dart 2 door sedan. Similar size, but very different in execution.
Hey there Paul, welcome back!
After several laudatory articles in “Motor Trend” and “Car & Driver” magazines; I developed a serious case of automotive lust for an Audi 100 LS.
The very ethnic German dark green enamel with tobacco brown interior models made my neck swivel like the Exorcist kid.
But after reading the desultory reliability records of these dream cars in “Consumer Reports” magazine and several brief parking lot conversations with disappointed owners, I started to doubt my desires.
Even the Audi service department mechanics quietly advised me not to buy one with air conditioning; so needed in the heat & humidity armpit of the south (New Orleans).
I finally compromised on the first of several (over the years) Opel Mantas. More reliable, better (but not great) A/C; but much less cache/snob appeal than an Audi.
I found these cars to be quite attractive when they were new. I also liked the BMW Bavaria, though those were more expensive. These cars were miles apart from the Detroit barges that I grew up loving. They were very simple and elegant to my eyes and spoke to the refinement and good taste of the discerning owner. I was just out of college and considering late model used cars. It might seem like a stretch, but the Ford Fairmont sedan also appealed to me in the same way. In the end I decided to go with the ’77 Coupe de Ville. One of my fellow college grad co workers bought an Audi 100 in that beautiful dark green color. I don’t know how that worked out. Audi developed a reputation for terrible reliability and that soured me on ever trying one. I still keep an eye out for a stray Audi Fox. For some reason I still want one of those.
Audi developed a reputation for terrible reliability and that soured me on ever trying one. I still keep an eye out for a stray Audi Fox. For some reason I still want one of those.
In 78 I was admiring the VW Dasher. The 78s switched to quad headlights and had an upgraded interior and instrument panel. They also cost as much as a Scirocco, starting at 6 bills, but they looked so much better than the more upright Rabbit.
I ended up buying a Mercury Zephyr Z7 coupe: 302/auto/air for 5 bills, vastly better deal than the Dasher, and the Dasher shared the Fox’s reputation for questionable reliability.
I have mentioned the POS Zephyr, and it’s monthly trips to the shop, here before. I probably would have been better off with the Dasher.
My job gave me company cars from 1972-77. The first a 72 VW Squareback with automatic. The second was a 73 Audi Fox with automatic in blue. Slow car. The third was a 74 Duster with 255 slant six and automatic. Now the Duster was a much nicer than the VW or Audi on the road.
Speedo same as Porsche 356.
I remember when Audi first showed up at the Detroit show. They were really pushing the 100, but the Super 90 was also offered in both sedan and wagon bodies.
The VW stand differed from the other stands at the show. Instead of models in miniskirts, they would have a couple guys in lab coats doing some sort of engineering demonstration.
Same thing with the Audi stand. They would set off smoke bombs to show how the flow through ventilation system in the 100 worked. They had the front wheels of the 100 on pivots, with a light attached to one wheel, and a moving target on the wall. A person from the audience would be invited to sit in the driver’s seat and turn the steering wheel to keep the light on the wheel on the moving target, all to demonstrate the speed and accuracy of the R&P steering. The presenters would invite the tallest person in the audience to sit in the 100 and adjust the seat to their liking. Invariably, the tall person would be used to running a car seat to the back end of the track, did the same in the 100, then have to pull the seat forward a bit because the 100 had crazy long seat tracks.
Front drive was so unknown in the US that Audi published a separate brochure titled “How an Audi works” to explain front drive.
I actually preferred the Super 90, probably because it was available as a 2 door wagon, but Audi advertising hardly ever mentioned it.
As luck would have, it, I borrowed a copy of the Standard Catalog for imports from the library a while back, and made some notes.
1970: 100: 6557, Super 90: 1131
1971: 100: 18179, Super 90: 2425
1972: 100: 26703, Super 90: 1928
1973: 100: 31065.
In 71, a 2 door Super 90 cost the same as a VW 411: $3,000. A 4 door 100LS: $3595
The Consumer Reports reliability table for the 100 is pretty grim.
I have three distinct memories of Audi 100’s from the early years when they were sold in the US. First was figuring out how to pronounce the name. I think a lot of Americans said “Oddy”, as in the name of the actor Audie Murphy. Then around 1972, a high school friend’s parents bought his older sister a new car as a college graduation gift. This struck me as odd, as their parents had a Ford wagon and a Cadillac. Apparently this was the car she wanted, which also struck me as odd for a 20-something. As a 16 year old car fanatic, I knew it was a nice car, but seemed pretty dull compared to a BMW 2002 or even a Volvo 142E.
Finally, from a ski trip in high school, I have a vivid visual memory of seeing an Audi 100 in the snow on Interstate 80 near Tahoe. It had chains on … the rear wheels.
My little brother who was obviously with me in the car at most times picked up a little useful info from those trips – Being a non-car guy and heading to Lake Tahoe in the same area you mention in his girlfriend’s car a few years after college, he put the chains on the front wheels of it. The car? A Ford Mustang. The more you know…
I have seen rental Mustangs recently with chains on the front. I also saw a Jeep GC once with chains on the front. I actually looked under it, in case it was a savvy owner of a 4wd who wanted to improve steering on ice … and it was a 2wd. Rear wheel drive in other words.
Lol at the AC box under the hood…
cc(CCOOL
A fine example of selling the sizzle without the steak.
A/C on German cars, in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s, left much to be desired.
Very great find Jim! I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these in the wild, but they are super attractive in their clean design. Also, I love how Audi used the same shaped center stack well into the 1990s.
Wow, look at that. My mother had a 76 Audi 100LS. At least that is the year I recall. I kept thinking a 74 but she had a 74 Pinto wagon which was no great car. Especially after I mistook a gravel road off to the right as the real road instead of the hairpin curve to the left. Then tried to correct too late, slid on the gravel, went up over a berm, landed on a metal culvert for a creek under the road, standing the wagon straight up, then catching fire. Car was never the same after that.
Enter the mustard colored Audi. Why that car I don’t know. Drove nicely, Plenty of room and comfortable. I never recall any issues with it other than some quirky German engineering that made me wonder WHY!
My last memory of it was coming back from Los Angeles September 1981 after taking board exams. Four of us cruising up US 5, now past the Grapevine, when the passenger front tire blows. My friend was driving and he did a great job keeping the car under control. What was memorable was changing the tire with the crappy jack stand. Thank god for four people. Not so good was the flooded field full of hungry mosquitos. Ever wonder what it is like to have a hundred mosquito bites on your body? Well, then the car disappeared in 1982 for a 320i.
Hi,
please can anyone tell the exact location where this Audi is located right now? I own five of these from 1970 to 1976 models and I would love to find out if some parts of this one would still be in usable condition. Great and reliable cars if you have grown up with them and know possible issues. Nothing unpredictable and nothing impossible to handle.
Joe
It is located at Anderson’s Sales and Salvage in Greeley, Colorado. I shot it about a week ago and it’s been there for a couple of weeks at most. They are a U-Pull-It yard so don’t do any part removal themselves, you have to go and take the parts off yourself and take them with you. Since then we’ve had a big snowstorm so it’s likely to be in the same condition as pictured but I doubt many parts will be sold off it as there is little local demand for something like this before it’s crushed in about two months or so…
Hi Jim,
thanks for the reply. I have forwarded the info to a small group of Audi enhusiasts. This ’77 c1 should be a collector’s item as it has almost every option available these days in an Audi. I wonder if it was possible to acquire a title to get it on the road again.
Outstanding find Jim. A car of this age would have so many stories to share if they could talk.
Shame that the progressive thinking owners of some of the most advanced, fuel efficient, and practical cars of the 1970s, so often got burned by indifferent reliability, and quality control. This one appears to have been well taken care of (and cherished) for many, many years. However clean the styling is, I find no German car of the 60s or 70s comes close to the advanced design of the earlier NSU Ro80. The 100LS/Fox/4000/5000, all looking conservative in comparison.
I found it interesting the build tag placard in this car shows the manufacturer as “Audi NSU Auto Union AG”. Yes, you could still drive off in a new NSU when this car was being built, but 1977 would be NSU’s last year. Oddly, though, NSU and Auto Union would remain part of the company’s name all the way into 1985 before being scrubbed from their official moniker. It reminds me a bit of how Studebaker-Packard was still called that into 1962, years after the Packard had left the building. Was somebody hoping they might be able to revive Packard? Was somebody hoping they might be able to revive NSU or Auto Union? If so, may have been the same guy for both since Auto Union and DKW (which became Audi) were distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Studebaker-Packard from 1958-64, during which Daimler owned Auto Union. Daimler had an exclusive distribution agreement with S-P at that time.
I considered this one of the most attractive German cars of its era. The first time I saw one of these was in the service bay at the Pontiac dealer where my mother bought her 74 Luxury LeMans. Don Ayers Pontiac in Fort Wayne took on two little side lines – Audi and Honda. Silly me, I kind of thought they were both similar kinds of cars, having no idea how expensive the Audi was.
Also silly me, who would have figured in 1974 that Audi and Honda would be selling all the cars and that Pontiac would be extinct.
In the early/mid 1970’s every German import had sub-standard air conditioning (A/C is SO very desirable in Hot & Humid New Orleans!); noisy and cool more than cold air output that lugged down/overheated the engine.
Even the most inexpensive Japanese car had a most competent A/C system.
Our ’71 250-C Mercedes-Benz had the best A/C of all our 1970’s German cars. It still reminded one of an add on unit from Western Auto with it’s rumbling and vibrating compressor.
A BMW 3.0CS was a hothouse in the summer in New Orleans. It’s noisy A/C was about as good as a damp washcloth on your face.
My ’72 Opel Manta, with it’s Buick dealer installed A/C, cooled off your knees and lower body well but had no face level vents. The huge Frigidaire GM compressor dropped the Interstate cruising speed from 65 down to 60 mph.
Just for comparison: My brother’s cheaper than any car mentioned above ’71 Toyota Celica ST, with it’s “factory” c-c-cold A/C system, put frost on your nose, did not drown out the radio or drag down the engine’s power or ever make the engine overheat. As did every Toyota I ever drove or rode in during this time period.
Priorities…priorities…
Hi Mark,
I do want to write an excuse to these facts, but I can explain a little bit what was going on as I grew up in Germany: The German buyers (and manufacturers!) of those days were strongly convinced a real man does not need a/c, p/s, automatic gearbox or similar power consuming devices! Reading German car ads of these days you would find the focus on horsepower ratings, top speed and acceleration ratings! Totally different from those ads in the USA. When I bought my first Audi 200 turbo 1980 (similar to US 5000 turbo but with much higher compression, no catalyst and more horsepower) it was important for me that it ran better than a BMW 2002 turbo and a SAAB 99 turbo. Nobody over here would even think to buy Japanese crap then. No speed limits nowhere – so that’s the way buyers thought: Top speed counts. Those days I did not opt a/c as the car would have been some mph slower and some lbs heavier!
No wonder a/c systems in German cars of those days were sub-standard …
Parents bought a new ’71 to drive in Germany and brought it back when they returned. Our Rambler was kept to use as a 2nd car, but it soon regained 1st car status. The Audi seemed so much better than the Rambler – at first. Within the 1st year, it started using oil. By year 2, Wisconsin road salt perforated the rockers and both front fenders. It suffered a variety of electrical gremlins that unpredictably stranded the car, then disappeared after had been towed in. The front brake calipers began to stick and no local garage had a clue how to service the unusual inboard discs. Meanwhile, the slower, uglier and less comfortable Rambler soldiered on. My dad gave up on the Audi and traded it before it was 3 years old. So ended the folks 1st experiment with foreign cars.
AAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!! Somebody mentioned the BRAKES on these things. Really quite horrible, calipers hidden on top, jammed up against the steerig rack, as if for some other car. Always produced facefull of brake dust/whatever whilst struggling to deal with them. FNAudi thoughtfully provided longer bleeder screws for the top caliper pistons.
Next, let us discuss engine mounts, include the funny part where engine falls to ground & is run over by the car.
Who said that Chermans had no sense of humor?
Not exactly correct, talking about the ’77 Audi 100 LS: From 1975 on they had outboard disc brakes with floating calipers just like VW Rabbit and I know that is a real difference for any mechanic without special tools.
Talking engine mounts: Yes, if right and/or left mount fail the engine would try to touch the ground. But no, this will not happen if the gearbox mount and the front center engine mount are in place. Those are designed differently.
Got to admit over here in Germany most of these Audis had rusted away within 8 or 10 years and yes, high oil consumption was an issue due to bad valve stem seals up to 1980. But modern replacements fit.
To my eyes, the 100LS had a most timeless, elegant, stylish, classy look to it’s exterior and interior.
Rather like a 1940 Buick or Packard.
Hi Mark,
since 1980 when I bought my very first Audi 100 I share this opinion and I still enjoy using these in summer as daily drivers.
Hello
In the 80’s I had a yellow US modell VIN nr: 8531061926
Now I have a green 77 modell VIN nr: 8171004758
Enjoying driving my car
Hello Einar,
For the European markets Audi discontinued production of the c1 body August 1976. Only for the US market they made about 5500 more c1 bodies up to March 1977. So, if you have got VIN …4758 your Audi is one of the very last c1 models ever made! Please, keep pride owning such a special car!
Regards, Joe
Owner of half a dozen of these c1
Hello.
Her is picture of my 1977 Audi 100 LS
It is very fun to drive this car. Many likes.
Here in Norway, many people have forgot how it looked like, in old times.
New try.
You need to reduce the image size before posting here. About 1200 pixels width max.
I regret it was not possible in 2019 for me to fly in and rescue that 1977 Audi from the yard in Colorado. Would have been restorable!
Joe
My parents bought a new “Clementine” orange red Audi 100 LS 4-door in May 1972 from Martin+Johnson Audi Porsche on Broadway in downtown Oakland. We lived in the Bay Area, CA. The car was trouble from almost Day 1. It burned oil constantly and was always in the shop. My parents kept it because they loved how it drove on the freeway. We had it for 10 years and traded it on a VW Quantum, another crappy car that at least didn’t have any mechanical problems, along with having no style or personality. My husband bought a 2007 Audi A4 new and I remember cautioning him against Audi. It also burned oil and there was a class action lawsuit over the faulty engine design that required you add 1-2 quarts of oil every 500-700 miles. I always think of the Audi 100 LS whenever I lust after a VW Audi offering.
A girl I dated back in the early 1980s owned a beigey-yellow ’74 Audi 100 she had bought used. I recall trying to make it to The Mosque in Richmond to see the Harlem Dance Theater (she had bought us tickets for my birthday). Whatever bearings the distributor shaft rotated on started failing, causing me to reset the point gap (dressed up, in the dark) at increasingly short intervals to keep the car running. We missed the show.
I ended up finding a silver ’77 100LS mechanic-liened at a local repair shop for $500 in 1984. A valve had dropped into one of the pistons at highway speeds. I removed an engine from a junkyard car (on my back, in the mud) and had it rebuilt at a local machine shop for around $150. Engine removal from the repair-shop car and installation of the rebuilt engine occurred on my gravel drive up in the mountains. I remember setting up a tripod of heavy poles and using a come-a-long to raise the front of the car for access. People told me that it was the first car built where the body was lowered on to the engine/transmission assembly, which HUNG from the rubber mounts.
I had Fears Seat Covers in Lynchburg redo the seats in a charcoal fabric for $125 and added added an aftermarket cruise control. I amounted aluminum wheels from an Audi 5000 and found out the hard way that I also needed right-angle connectors where the brake lines met the calipers.
I got married in 1988 and gave it to my wife so we could mercifully junk her 1977 Ford Mustang II, through which I had endeared myself to her by bravely trying to keep running after she had been ripped off by every mechanic in Virginia. That Ford was the worst car ever made, or close to it.
The wife drove it for another three years before I destroyed it in the driveway in 1991 by goosing the throttle from under the hood to check for backfires after setting the timing. The throttle stuck wide open and a valve dropped down into a cylinder before I could get the engine shut down. Full circle! I got seven years and 85,000 miles out of it for $1,000.
The only unsolvable problem I had for all of the years I owned it was the silver paint. It could not be waxed or even rubbing-compounded to a shine by any means, manual or mechanical. A professional restorer I took it to as a last resort stated, “I can’t do anything with it. The pigment has DIED!” I was ok with matte silver.
The next Audi I bought was a 1979 5000 that was originally owned by Apollo 7 astronaut Donn Eisele. Donn had died in Japan while on a business trip four years earlier and the car had served as his daughter Kristy’s (Levi) transportation while she was a student at Hollins College. Her mom Susan ( Black) was shocked at the time that I was reluctant to hand over the cash for a car for which she “couldn’t find the title”. They found it.
On top of the Audi 100 C2 being developed into the C3, was the C2 itself a development of the C1 whose roots stretch back to the F103 or an all-new design basically an upsized Audi Fox/80 B1?