Some events in history create such a stir that they fuse a person’s time and the outside world’s time together as if captured in a photograph of a single permanent moment. In some of our lifetimes, these events include the day that John F Kennedy was shot, that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, or that the final Harry Potter book was revealed to the world.
The release of the 1983 Audi 100/200/5000 was one of those watershed moments in the automotive world.
The 1983 big Audi marked an unexpected line in the sand in the automotive world. When future generations of automotive archaeologists dig through the rubble of the 20th century landscape, they’ll find nice, big, broughamtastic cars before the big Audi, and sleek aerodynamic ones afterward. Its styling suddenly made existing cars look outdated, and influenced mass produced cars like the new Ford Taurus. Manufacturers moved to fit flush side glass to their models so their cars too could look smooth, aerodynamic and modern.
I’ve called it the big Audi as its name changed depending on what country you were in, what year it was, and what automotive controversy you may have been aware of. Built on the C3 platform, this was the third generation of the big Audi, and debuted as the 100/200 in most of the world, and the 5000/5000CS in the US. It not only looked modern and aerodynamic, but its coefficient of drag was the lowest of any large car at only .30, even better than most sports cars. Excellent aerodynamics allowed it to achieve a higher top speed and higher miles per gallon with a smaller engine than comparable vehicles.
In the US, sales soared to 74,061 in 1985, until the broadcast of the 60 Minutes episode titled “Out Of Control” in November 1986. The program interviewed six people who had sued VW (Audi’s parent company) over the claimed Unintended Acceleration of their Audi 5000’s, causing death, mayhem and destruction. Reports flooded the NHSTA about cars accelerating uncontrollably despite drivers standing on the brake pedal.
Audi claimed that drivers had to have been pressing on the accelerator, not the brake pedal, as the most powerful sports car in the world could not out accelerate its brakes. They moved the brake and accelerator pedals farther apart, and eventually installed a shift interlock system so the brakes must be applied prior to shifting the transmission out of “Park”. It was later revealed that 60 Minutes had doctored their cars to non-stock configurations to dramatize their conclusions.
For Audi, it was all too little and too late, as its US sales imploded from that previous high of 74,061 to only 12,283 in 1991. It was the most effective corporate hit job in automotive history, and Audi’s sales didn’t exceed that 1985 high water mark until the year 2000.
Audi’s resale values also plummeted right along with their sales, and I’m a big fan of buying things at a discount.
It was 1991 and we lived in Huntington Beach with a beautiful two year old daughter. I was traveling a lot for work and becoming increasingly disillusioned with 15 years of corporate work environments. An associate from Denver and I had become friends as we shared some common interests – we were both pilots, owned airplanes and wanted out of the corporate rat race. We hatched a plan to start our own business, and since I wanted to get out of the hustle and bustle of Southern California anyway, I’d move and we’d locate the business in the Denver area.
I visited the Rocky Mountain area frequently during my corporate travels, so I was very familiar with the changing weather. “Self?” I said to myself, “It snows in Denver, and while front wheel drive is good, wouldn’t four wheel drive be even better?” And “If I’ll be leaving the stop and go traffic anyway, maybe I could go back to a manual transmission?” With Audi offering turbocharged power and Quattro four wheel drive, what could go wrong?
Throw in the depressed resale prices and I smelled “opportunity”. So I searched and found a 1987 5000CS Quattro about 60 miles away in Van Nuys, CA. In the US, the CS was the upmarket version of the 5000 line, featuring turbocharging, the Quattro drivetrain and leather throughout. Whereas the 4000S looked chiseled and lean, the 5000CS was smooth and flowing.
It looked fast even standing still, and the Titan Red Metallic color really set it off among a sea of gray and silver cars.
Inside, big leather seats cosseted its occupants and everything had an upscale feel to it. The five speed fell readily to hand, the instrumentation legible and controls reachable. Everything was power assisted – steering, brakes, windows, locks, sunroof, seats – the works. This was the largest car that I’d ever had, and four NFL linebackers could actually fit inside as opposed to my previous cars. The trunk seemed humongous and could hold 47 suitcases, give or take a few.
The engine compartment was chock full of 2.2 liters of turbocharged and intercooled goodness. The five speed models generated 164 hp, while the automatic transmission equipped cars had 130 hp – resulting in very different driving experiences. The radiator was offset to the driver’s side to allow for the length of the engine, and hoses, lines and wires seemed to run everywhere.
The Audi handled better than any large car that I’d ever driven, and its ability to soak up bumps and bad roads was impressive. And although there was some turbo lag at low RPM’s, it quickly composed itself so rowing through the gears was fun with an addictive quality as the boost ramped higher. The car was entertaining, and reminded me of an NFL running back whose speed and agility are unexpected in a package of that size.
This iteration of the Quattro system had a knob on the dash that could manually lock the rear, front or both differentials. This gave you some real options when the weather turned bad, and I never got stuck in the car regardless of the road conditions.
Surprisingly, the big Audi also had an illustrious racing career, winning eight of the 13 Trans Am races that it entered. Of course, Americans weren’t keen on a German vehicle, particularly one as large as the Audi, dominating American racing, so it was banned after one season. The 2.1 liter motor and Quattro drivetrain competed a little too well with the 5 liter American entries.
The Audi was full of the latest whiz bang electronic, hydraulic and vacuum gadgetry as befits a premium German automobile. Audi was playing in the big leagues now, and it needed to keep up with its Mercedes and BMW competition.
There’s a saying that goes “Nothing is as expensive as buying a cheap German car”, and the 5000CS repeatedly tried to prove that to me. Although there’s no evidence that Britain’s Joseph Lucas, “The Prince Of Darkness” designed any of the Audi’s electrics, the engineer who did may have been the result of some inbreeding with a distant cousin of Lord Lucas. Sometimes the car had a mind of its own, and at times the push of a button wasn’t a demand for a certain action, but rather interpreted as a polite request for the car to consider.
Twist the knob for the differential lock and the gremlins responded with “Lock the rear differential? I don’t know, do we want to lock the differential?” Select the headlights at night and it was “Headlights? Didn’t we do that yesterday?”
One summer, my wife, two year old daughter and I were returning from a family visit in Denver to Huntington Beach. Passing through Green River, UT, a bright red orb caught my attention, just sitting there and glowing in the instrument panel. Huh? That suspiciously looked like the alternator light, but the temperature gauge was unchanged, so an alternator belt didn’t seem to be a likely candidate. I cut power to all of the electrical accessories and turned around at the next off ramp. Re-entering Green River, I stopped in a motel parking lot, popped the hood and couldn’t see anything amiss. Did I mention that it was Sunday?
Since it was only about 94 degrees outside, I booked a room where wife and daughter could relax while I figured out what to do. Green River was not exactly a thriving metropolis, and I could count on one hand how many other foreign vehicles I saw on the streets. With no shops open, I removed the alternator and hiked the ¼ mile to a NAPA store.
The good news? Yep – the alternator was shot and I didn’t have to search for any other causes of my predicament. The bad news? This small local NAPA store didn’t have an alternator for a German vehicle in this God fearing American town. But they were willing to order it and it would arrive…whenever it would get there. Two days later the alternator arrived, I installed it and we hightailed it out of hot, dry and dusty Green River UT.
Although the Audi only left me stranded that one time, my economical nature began anticipating that I could soon be funding a mechanic’s boat purchase or kid’s college education. I became fearful of something going “poof!” and letting the magic smoke out of the wiring, requiring a tow truck to the mechanic and me being required to bring a Brink’s truck full of money to recover the vehicle.
Although I could list all kinds of logical reasons that it was time to sell the Audi, the truth is – and I hate to admit this – but I had fallen in lust love with the idea of another vehicle. This really isn’t my nature, as I don’t actively plot for the next while I’m with the current, whether it be in a marriage or with cars. But in this case, I became obsessed with the idea of what was possible, and set my sights on making that happen.
The Audi had provided upscale, relatively dependable, fast and engaging transportation in all weather conditions. It safely relocated my wife and daughter from Huntington Beach to Denver while I drove the moving truck and towed her car. It opened my eyes and showed me that not all large cars had to be wallowing Brougham-mobiles (no offense to the Broughamaholics here at CC).
But after several years, I wanted to turn the knob up to 11 with an unlikely car. For those of you following along at home, we’ll end this COAL with a pop quiz – “What could take a turbocharged, four wheel drive vehicle up to the next rarefied level?”
Stay tuned as our next COAL examines one of my all-time, top 5 favorite vehicles…
What “60 Minutes” did to Audi should have been an eye-opener. It was nothing less than a violation of trust, but it does seem that to this day, people still give undue, often blind credibility to what is told them by the mass media, whose actual No. 2 job is not to inform but to entertain.
No. 1 is to sell advertising.
CBS 60 Minutes wasn’t only one that doctored the vehicles for dramatic effect and got guillotined publicly for that. Dateline NBC did the same with 1973–1987 Chevrolet C/K pick-up trucks and their side-saddle fuel tanks, rigging the explosion with small firework rocket. The rocket was barely visible in standard definition video and for a second or two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtpMzGN9uWc
Audi made a mistake of introducing 5000 with “old-fashioned” headlamp capsules for the US market. The “illegal” retrofit with composite ECE headlamps was so widespread that Audi rushed the redesign for 1986 model year.
The difference with the Dateline case was that GM authorized one of its lawyers to do some digging. I knew the guy and he started searching area wrecking yards until he found the trucks that NBC had doctored for better video footage.
I think GM had seen what CBS had done to Audi and was more aggressive in responding.
The Aero headlights were illegal until 1986/87, so no mistake, they literally couldn’t do anything else – deregulation FTW! The Mark VII was the first American car to use them.
No, the form-fitting composite headlamps, a.k.a. Euro headlamps, were approved in 1983 for the 1984 model year and onward. Lincoln gambled on the headlamps for its Mark VII: one with sealed beam headlamp capsules and other one with composite headlamps during the development stage. When NHTSA finally approved it, Lincoln was ready to go with the composite headlamps and got the bragging right.
I have seen the photos of Mark VII prototype with sealed beam headlamp capsules during the real-world evaluations.
The two I recall first were the 1985 VW Jetta and GTI (but not Golf, it remained with square sealed-beams for its first year here), and the revised 1985 Audi 4000/Coupe.
Note though that even with the Euro “look” the light innards or lenses themselves on all the new lights were not the European market design so lots of people still replaced them with the real thing for functionality’s sake rather than just the exterior optics.
I was a young litigator when that 60 Minutes report came out. We saw a wave of cases where people tried to blame “sudden accelleration” for their accidents. I recall one case where an elderly man lost control of his early 80s Caprice in a car wash. An engineering firm concluded that it was sudden unintended acceleration. Now ask me why I am skeptical of experts.
As for the car, it took me awhile to warm up to these, but now I find them beautiful. .30 was really impressive – my Golf GTI was .37, which was still a really good number, but the Audi blew it away on that metric.
Your report reinforces my long-held prejudice that expensive European vehicles are best experienced new and with a factory warranty.
Interestingly, I saw an unintended acceleration accident at a car wash a few years ago. The car wash attendant was taking a Grand Cherokee out of the wash bay (it was on the conveyor belt), and he pressed the gas instead of the brake — or at least that’s what it sounded like.
Suddenly, the Jeep shot out of the wash like a bat out of you-know-where. The Attendant had the presence of mind to steer away from a bunch of other car-wash employees, narrowly avoiding a carnage. But the Jeep – still fully accelerating – drove over a berm at the edge of the car wash’s parking lot, went airborne and landed on the roof of a minivan in the adjoining parking lot.
Remarkably, no one was injured. The attendant walked away, and to my knowledge, he still works at the car wash. But wow, that was quite a thing to witness. I took this picture right after it happened:
Another litigator here. I actually worked on defending a few of these cases. It’s been a long time, and I don’t have access to the files any more, and client confidentiality, so I don’t have any juicy inside details to share. However, I remember noting at the time that none of the plaintiff drivers were teenagers. Think back a second to when you were 17. You’re trying to explain a smashed car to your parents. “But Mom, it wasn’t my fault. My foot was on the brake. The car accelerated by itself!” Do you think Mom would have believed that for a second?
Actually the preponderance of litigants that claimed to have experienced UA with the 5000 were women with shorter than average stature. Which totally makes sense, as the Audi’s pedals were somewhat offset (due to FWD) from the typical location in American cars. These owners invariably had bought the faddish Audi as their first import. Being short of stature exaggerated the offset of the pedals in relation to the normal sitting position. Also Audis had a much smaller brake pedal than American cars. Hence the tendency to step on the gas pedal.
These incidents invariably did not happen to men who had previously owned imports, and men in general at a much lower rate.
Interesting. I had never heard of the male/female ratio of litigants…
I should clarify: it wasn’t exactly “litigants”; it was from an analysis by NHTSA of all the cases reported. Ergonomics/pedal placement is the key factor in all UA cases (except the Toyota floor mats). I did huge data dives on this issue back ten years ago at ttac during the Toyota pedaldemic. For instance, GM, which had done a thorough job of this issue consistently had vastly fewer cases reported than most other manufacturers. Certain lines of cars at other companies were higher, some lower. It’s all about pedal placement (and of course the proper response by the driver when they have stepped on the wrong pedal).
Other manufactures have learned this, and UA cases reported to NHTSA have generally been much lower because of that.
Being short of stature exaggerated the offset of the pedals in relation to the normal sitting position.
A short local celeb backing up in an SUV into a crowd was thought to have gone on a rampage, or maybe was drunk. Study showed that when she turned around to look out the window of her big SUV, her feet didn’t keep steady contact with the pedals and “forgot” where she was, ergo hitting the gas instead of the brake.
DANVILLE March 13, 2019 — A 92-year-old man put his foot on the gas pedal of his Tesla Model 3 vehicle rather than the brake while trying to park Wednesday morning and drove the car into a restaurant, police said.
The Danville resident was OK, as was the Fish On Fire, a sushi restaurant located in the Danville Town and Country Center, police said. The crash happened around 6:30 a.m.
“Not the fault of the car,” Danville Police Chief Allan Shields said. “He was simply trying to park and had pedal confusion.”
At 6:30 am when everything is closed in this center where my office is. Fish on Fire is right across the parking lot from my front door. Entire front doors and glass smashed. They reopened March 1, 2020 just in time for you know what. It is also not the only Tesla to have rammed the front door of a business in Danville.
See my comment above. I suspect strongly that Tesla’s pedal placement is not optimum for reducing the likelihood of pedal misapplication.
You’re not the only one who benefited from buying a used Audi at a discount. In 1989, I purchased a 1981 Audi Coupe — I was 16 and it was my first car, and the fact that I could afford it says a lot about how Audi resale values plummeted in those years.
Of course, my Audi was a far cry from the newer and more luxurious aero 5000’s, but a year or two after I bought that car my father toyed with the idea of buying a used 5000cs Quattro like yours. Dad loved the concept of Audi Quattros, though they were way out of his price range (and he deemed the 4000s to be too small). At some point, he found a low-mileage golden-colored 5000CS Quattro for sale at a nearby Audi dealer. I went with him to test-drive it, and he remarked that it was probably the best all-around car he’d ever driven.
Dad really thought long and hard about buying that Quattro — the price was very reasonable, after all. However, he was unconvinced about buying a used car, especially one with a less-than-stellar reliability record and known high maintenance costs. So he passed on it. But every time we’d see one on the road, he’d talk about how wonderful of a car that was.
Those alloys on the red car are made by Fuchs, same as the famous Porsche 911 ones and are the lightest wheel offered for the C3 series cars as I recall, besides just looking the business – although they somehow manage to look similar to GM Rallye wheels!
What a fantastic car for the Rockies area, for many years around here the faster Audis were THE car to have as it’s the only thing that would get you up the mountains fast and safely. Nowadays power has become democratized and almost anything can exceed the uphill speed limits during a snow event but back then? This was about it. And it came in red!
There’s an excellent documentary out there (and on YouTube) regarding the Audi TransAm era cars, after TransAm I believe they switched to IMSA with an Audi 90 looking body and had similar dominant results. Hurley Haywood was the main driver and the video, especially the footage of the rainy races, was eye opening. The cars are just massive, the only four-doors in the series, and massively fast with seemingly no need to slow for corners.
I’ve always maintained that no one does red better than Audi (except maybe Ferrari).
True on all Jim. We’ll be talking about that Trans Am history real shortly here.
I remember a friend who relocated from Denver to a new job in Aspen. This position entailed working for a wealthy individual in a financial capacity. Part of his relocation package included a brand new UrS6 so he would have a good snow car. And that was just one of the perks.
I obviously run with the wrong crowd…
I too know of several people in the area with a financial background with UrS4/6’s in their COAL histories, we likely know several of the same people in the S-car Mafia or Qcommunity around these parts 🙂 Looking forward to the next installment!
Now here’s a car I can relate to.
Mine was a dedicated Audi family through the 80’s and into the 90’s. My mom had a 5000S, I had a 5000S Turbo, then a Coupe GT. My aunt had a 4000S that was well-loved and long-kept.
Our cars had all of the same moody gremlins. I found that the best course of action was to just ignore them and go with the flow…if something didn’t work one day, a few days later they’d start to work again. I can’t think of anything that broke permanently, and none of us were ever left stranded.
As for the “unintended acceleration”, what a whole crock of BS. That 60 Minutes hit piece was criminal, IMO.
I also remember a woman in Florida who claimed “unintended acceleration” when she took off from a stoplight in her BMW 7-series (or maybe it was a 5-series) and ended up wrapping the car around a tree and killing 2 of the 3 kids in her back seat.
She was up for a vehicular homicide charge and her lawyer “found” a couple other BMW owners who claimed their cars had done the same thing.
All through the 60 Minutes Audi story and the piece on this Florida woman, nobody ever asked the $64,000 question:
“Why didn’t you just shift into neutral?“
Seems obvious to me. Isn’t that, like, Driver’s Ed 101? “Standing on the brakes” seems like a silly thing to do. These cars all had floor shifts with no “interlock” between D and N.
Such BS.
Or just step on the (real) brakes; even easier. 🙂
Having done it, in two MN12 Thunderbirds, I can assure you it isn’t that easy.
At the time I was working as a mechanic and my habit was to pull the car into gear and then brake as necessary. The first time the car was rolling forward and as I approached the door I applied the brake to slow in case of pedestrians crossing and the car shot forward instead. Now here’s the disconnect that no one can wrap their heads around that hasn’t done it, you believe you’re on the brake because you foot is in the “right” spot so the car doing something different is a total surprise and it’s that surprise that actually delays rational thought for too long to do any good. In this case there was nothing in front for a couple hundred feet and within a second or so I’d cut the ignition due to prior experience with poorly modified cars sticking WOT.
I didn’t understand what had actually happened until many months later when I was pulling another MN12 Thunderbird out of the shop. As a response the the prior runaway I had changed my habit to brake first, then gear so as I sat in the car I applied the brake and the engine started racing. At first I thought bad brake booster but then remembered it didn’t act weird on the way in and that’s when it hit me that my foot was actually on the gas pedal and I instantly understood what had happened on the prior car.
I didn’t understand why it kept happening to me with MN12 Birds until I owned a Supercoupe many years later and had more time with the car to notice that the pedals were definitely shifted left due to the gigantic transmission tunnel. This placed the gas pedal where muscle memory said the brake pedal should be
I got to throw my two cents in knowing that many times we forget to start our diagnostics-understanding without focusing on the simplest solution-explanation.
I’m talking about corrosion and the importance of cleaning the negative ground.
I’ve seen too many fools utter inexplicable “electrical Gremlins” complaints without figuring out a basic nugget of truth with auto electrics (an area that makes most mechanics tremble or beg off). That nugget of truth goes like this: the longer you own a car, the more likely you’ll find some corrosion somewhere on the car.
When corrosion sets in on a negative battery lead or ground screw, you’re gonna find some real amusing, unpredictable entropic happenings (“my vehicle is possessed…does what it wants to do when I push a button”). Also, when auto electrics got more complicated with chips, computers, accessories….the system required almost perfect amperage and voltage with no resistance: always keep an eye on recharging your battery no matter how much life it has left. Find out what the battery is reading when you have no problems.
For the heck of it, I just recharged my Ford truck (had no complaints or problems) and was astounded that my battery wasn’t fully charged? There were no warning lights on the dash? Cheap battery or old alternator-recharging system?
Nugget of wisdom: do not buy cheapest battery at WalMart. Had to swap those out every other winter on my Dad’s cars. Swapping out batteries when it’s cold at night, is not as much fun as warm sunlight.
Also…for starter motors. Clean all wires and where they bolt in to assure no corrosion is causing electrical flow.
Growing up in a retirement area, we saw a lot of “unintended acceleration” events, with most of them elderly drivers in parking lots both putting the car in drive (or reverse) instead of park and standing on the brakes. And when I say lots, I mean this happens a lot, even to this day. Think about how little attention is paid when someone is actually driving, and then compound that fact with the driver being in a parking space and paying even less attention, and you can see how easily it can happen. Add to that Honda’s floormat defense, which is a plausible cause of a pedal not being deployed correctly, and it all gets crazy. The good (or bad, depending on your views) thing with cars being controlled by a “brain” is that we now have post-crash data available, showing if the car was in gear, what gear, and what pedal was being depressed, and how forcefully. It gives speed of impact in crashes, and whether braking was applied. I don’t know if this was a byproduct, or something the OEMs added to provide some protection against claims.
If we could just combine the UA of the Audi, the explosive saddle tanks of GM pickups, and the floormats of the Hondas then we’d have a prefect trifecta of flaming damage and death. Using our brains while driving is becoming a lost art…
Can I guess hot Subaru as the replacement?
Great guess Huey. To quote super sleuth Maxwell Smart, “Missed it by that much…” 😉
Well, he drove a Karmann Ghia too…
BTW, just some “intended” acceleration would be nice from the old VeeDub!
Absolutely love those Audis – they really did redefine car design. And those 5s sound awesome – was behind an S3 yesterday – operatic!
This car reminds me a lot of the 89-94 Nissan Maxima – same clean, aerodynamic and classic proportions. Both cars still look good today.
Ed,
Just curious, have you ever owned a Saab? Particularly either a classic 900 or 9000?
No PJ, I’ve never owned a Saab, but have always respected their technology and unconventional engineering. I had a brother in law with a 9000 that he quite liked.