Another Monday Money, and another 4WD Turbo 90’s car… but this time from Germany…
Based on the subjectively tasteful Audi 80 Avant, the RS2 is the very first RS badged car, and first sports Avant released by Audi. It was designed and assembled in partnership with Porsche between 1994 and 1995 at their Rossle-Bau factory where space was available after the Mercedes 500E was discontinued.
The RS2 was produced in very small numbers (2891 example) which helps its desirability factor today as unmolested and low mileage examples are becoming increasingly rare. It is also considered by some of Audi fans to be the car that helped the brand getting serious recognition and establishing themselves as high-performance daily driver builders thanks to its unbelievable capabilities at the time.
The 5 pot 2.2L 20v engine developed and well used by Audi has been modified to develop 315bhp at 6,500rpm. This is more than you can find on today’s Audi S3. The turbocharged engine not only sounds amazing thanks to its inline-5 architecture but delivers the power with an exciting brutality that put to shame many sports cars of that era, even today.
0 to 60 only takes 4.8 seconds, and top speed is slightly above 160mph which is rather impressive already. But now to the even better and actually hard to believe, in 1995 @Autocar road test timed the 0 to 30 time at 1.5 seconds. Even though this is not a metric that is widely used in the automotive world, this is quicker than the McLaren F1’s time! Yes, THE McLaren F1. One can argue that a 4WD car will always be quicker off the line than an RWD, but still, we’re talking about a lighter car with double the power.
Though performance was a massive selling point for the RS2, practicality was also spot on, being an estate and offering 5 comfortable seats and a big boot. You can currently grab yourself an RS2 from £25K upwards relative to history and condition. Beware though as many of these cars have been driven around (thank god for that!), which makes it difficult and expensive to find a low mileage example.
We cannot wish enough that Audi and Porsche will come back with a similar partnership on improving an existing Audi with Porsche performance part. The RS2 retained the 964 Turbo design for its mirrors and wheels, and the little Porsche badge was added to the front and back. We can only imagine how a Porsche modified RS3 would perform today… Both please, bring a similar partnership back!
Credit photo – Peter Aylward for Classic Driver
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