Whereas Individuals might purchase new automobiles made by Audi ancestors DKW and NSU through the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties (few did so), the Audi story as we all know it right here actually started in 1969, when the 1970 100LS went on sale in the US. The 100LS remained on sale by means of 1976 and gained a small-but-devoted American following, and I strive my greatest to seek out discarded examples throughout my junkyard travels. This has been a tough job, with only a lone ’76 sedan showing earlier than my digicam through the previous decade or so. Final week, although, I discovered this extraordinarily uncommon first-model-year 100LS in a yard northeast of Denver.
Observe that the corporate identify was “Audi NSU Auto Union” on the time of this automotive’s manufacture; that is what Volkswagen’s bosses named it after the 1969 acquisition of NSU, and the identify caught till the corporate turned simply Audi AG within the Nineteen Eighties. Date of manufacture was April of 1970, across the time when the Baader-Meinhoff Group was stirring up bother in West Germany.
Bob Hagestad ran a Porsche/Audi dealership on Colfax Avenue in Denver, turned well-known as a Colorado 924 racer, and went on to promote Volkswagens in Texas.
This automotive seems to have been well-cared-for throughout its first couple of many years, at which level it ended up spending a few years sitting outside within the harsh Excessive Plains local weather. A lot of the paint has been burned off its higher surfaces and there is rust-through from a few years of winter snow buildup.
The once-luxurious inside has been irradiated right into a dust-billowing crispiness.
As so usually occurs with automobiles saved outside for lengthy intervals right here, rodents made their nests within the passenger and engine compartments. You should watch out with mouse-poop-filled automobiles like this in Colorado boneyards, as a result of hantavirus is a genuinely deadly hazard right here. I’ve seen worse rodent-poop automobiles than this, although — a lot worse.
The 1.8-liter engine all the way in which on the entrance of the engine compartment made 115 horsepower when new, which was fairly good energy for 1970.
The four-on-the-floor guide was nonetheless state-of-the-art in 1970, with most Detroit three-pedal automobiles nonetheless operating three-on-the-trees. The ultimate new four-speed guide automotive accessible in the US hit the showrooms when this Audi was a quarter-century outdated, so any such transmission remained related for fairly some time. The 100LS obtained an non-compulsory computerized transmission beginning in 1971, and it value $200 further (about $1,310 in 2021 {dollars}).
The shift diagram constructed into a regular VDO gauge housing is a pleasant contact.
These VDO/Kienzle clocks went into thousands and thousands of European automobiles over the many years.
This Emden AM/FM radio was an $85 possibility. That is about $555 in present-day bucks, however completely vital if you happen to wished to take heed to the hits of 1970 with the required constancy.
So how a lot was your complete automotive? MSRP on the two-door 100LS sedan got here to $3,695, or about $25,450 in 2021 {dollars}. In the meantime, the larger and flashier 1970 Buick Gran Sport hardtop coupe value simply $3,283, and that included a 455-cubic-inch (7.5-liter) V8 rated at 350 horsepower. An American automotive shopper needed to be one thing of a faithful Europhile to decide on a brand new Audi in 1970 (in that case, although, the $2,982 BMW 2002 would have been powerful to withstand).
I hope some Colorado 100LS restorers extract some usable components off this automotive earlier than it faces the chilly metal jaws of the crusher!
Like having a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, Mercedes-Benz 280SE, and a Cadillac Eldorado all on the identical time!
