B70 TBW
1984 Audi 80 quattro
Bought: September 2001 for £300, 51,000 miles
Sold: April 2002 for £800, 61,000 miles
Start with the engine. It had five cylinders, which sounds odd but meant it made a really cool noise, throbby and loud like a rally car. Which it was, basically, a bit like the Subarus and Mitsubishi Evos of today. So, of course, it was four wheel drive. This was the mutt's nuts as far as driving in the rain or snow was concerned. No need to slow down, just drive like the road was dry. You could also pull a lever on the dashboard that allowed you to lock the differentials, so that if only one wheel had any grip, the car could still move. It was a real shame we had such a mild winter that year.
I actually had the cheek to turn up at a Club Audi track day at Curborough in it, when everyone else (except one other bloke, who had a rally 80 quattro - nice) had shiny new S3's and TT's. I had the slowest time of the day, but not by much, and I enjoyed every bloody minute, particularly as I knew my car cost less than most of their designer clothes. Ha - stick that in yer Paul Smith jacket and smoke it. Unfortunately, no-one managed to capture a picture of the beast in action that day, so we're stuck with the picture above taken on my driveway just after I'd bought it and given it a damn good clean.
It was also roomy, had a cool steering wheel in the style of a 1960's Porsche 911, got much respect from fellow petrolheads and clocked up 10,000 miles in six months with only one breakdown, when the ignition switch gave up the ghost. Fixed it by running a wire from the starter motor to the battery. Would look like you were hotwiring it when you started it but that was all part of the fun.
So, it was fast, fun, well-built and cheap. The reason it was so cheap is because I bought it on eBay. Some old boy had owned it from new, he was 91 and gave up driving. He was going to scrap the car but a mechanic at his local Audi garage stepped in and bought it from him, did enough work for it to pass the next MOT and took it home. Whereupon his wife said "Get that thing off my drive". So I bought it.
Although it drove fine it still needed a bit of work - over the course of 6 months I fitted a new interior (the driver's seat was knackered but I couldn't get any cloth, so I got a Coupe quattro interior from a breakers), new front and rear spoilers (from a bloke in the owner's club - cheers John from Swindon, and sorry for treading dogpoo into your carpet), a radio (never had one from new, so got a freebie Clarion from my mate Dom's Bluebird), new exhaust, stopped water leaking into the boot by putting mastic round the rear light seals, fixed the central locking (new pump for a fiver from Club Audi), knocked out a dent in the door and got rid of some rust on one of the wheelarches (courtesy Coventry & Clark in Basingstoke, the best bodyshop around!). In the end I got bored again, and sold it to a bloke from the Audi owner's club who came all the way from Cheltenham at really short notice. He seemed dead chuffed with it.
If only I could find his details, I'd ring him up and buy it back on the spot. One day I'll buy a proper Quattro instead. Unlikely to get one of those for £300 though...