In 2022, we place Audi on the identical degree as Mercedes-Benz and BMW. A number of fashions deserve credit score for serving to the agency obtain this hard-earned market positioning, however the 80 is arguably the automotive that laid the foundations. Often called the Fox in America, it is celebrating its fiftieth birthday.
Audi as we all know it was fashioned within the Nineteen Sixties, although it traces its roots to the late nineteenth century. Volkswagen started shopping for right into a German carmaker named Auto Union in 1964, largely as a result of it wanted extra manufacturing capability to construct the Beetle and the deal included a then-recent manufacturing unit in Ingolstadt. The thought was by no means to let the agency stand by itself; DKW, one of many corporations that made up Auto Union, was phased out and changed by Audi, however the firm was strictly forbidden from designing new vehicles. Audi assembled a small group to secretly design the unique 100 and confirmed it to Volkswagen boss Heinz Nordhoff when it was completed. He reluctantly authorised the automotive.
Launched in 1968, and delivered to America in 1970, the 100 proved extra fashionable than anybody anticipated, so Audi was given a brand new lease on life and assigned the funds it wanted to design new fashions, together with the 80. Whereas the nameplate wasn’t new, practically all the things else in regards to the automotive was: It was developed with an eye fixed on lightness to ship participating dealing with and good gas financial system, and it provided customers a spacious inside regardless of a comparatively small footprint. The entry-level two-door mannequin weighed 1,840 kilos and measured about 164 inches lengthy.
The boxy sheetmetal hid a number of improvements, together with a diagonal braking system that improved security. Energy got here from a water-cooled four-cylinder engine that was mounted longitudinally and that spun the entrance wheels through a four-speed guide transmission in its customary configuration. Displacement ranged from 1.3 to 1.6 liters, with outputs pegged between 55 and 100 horsepower. This wasn’t uncommon, however the intelligent bit was that these engines had been a part of the identical EA827 household. Designing a modular engine saved an amazing sum of money.
In our market, the place the 80 was known as Fox, gross sales began for the 1973 mannequin 12 months. The vary initially included two- and four-door sedans priced at $3,399 and $3,509, respectively (about $22,400 and $23,100, respectively, in 2022 {dollars}). A number of the smaller engines obtainable in Europe weren’t offered right here, so the entry-level unit was a 1.5-liter four-cylinder rated at 75 horsepower and 82 pound-feet of torque.
Over 1 million models of the first-generation 80 had been constructed by the point manufacturing resulted in 1978, a quantity that exceeded expectations and satisfied executives as soon as and for all that Audi had a task to play within the Volkswagen Group. On a secondary degree, the 80 took Audi into a brand new phase that was virtually non-existent within the early Seventies. The primary-generation 80 was changed by a second-generation mannequin in 1978 (it was known as 4000 in America), the third-generation 80 arrived in 1986, and the fourth-generation automotive made its debut in 1991. The final 80 was in-built 1995; by that time, the unique A4 had been launched to take the torch, signaling the beginning of a brand new chapter within the agency’s historical past.
We even have the 80 line to thank for a few of Audi’s biggest hits: The rally-winning Quattro was a heavily-modified evolution of the Coupe GT, which was based mostly on the second-generation 80’s B2 platform, and the RS2 super-wagon was associated to the Avant variant of the fourth-generation 80. And, lastly, now we have the 80 to thank for the Passat: The primary-generation mannequin launched in 1973 was similar to the 80.
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