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The Audi 80 competition / Audi A4 quattro Supertouring

The little race car was very big.
Following its withdrawal from the DTM and its constantly rising costs, Audi decided to enter the next smallest, near-series class the Super Touring Car Cup (STC), which was about to debut. The competition car was the Audi 80, which was later succeeded by the A4. The STC functionaries oriented themselves to the international standards for two-liter touring cars. The naturally aspirated engines were limited to 8,500 rpm, and thus an engine output of roughly 220 kW (300 hp). This made the aerodynamics all the more important. Audi spent roughly 140 hours with a special test car in the wind tunnel to fine tune the outer skin of the A4 quattro Supertouring. Another of the elegant bodys strengths was its high rigidity. The seating position was state-of-the-art, with the drivers seat shifted somewhat downward, toward the center and to the rear in the interest of weight distribution. The transmission was a sequential six-speed unit with an even number of teeth. The quattro permanent all-wheel drive and the sophisticated aerodynamics were key factors for the finely balanced and harmoniously handling of the race A4, which weighed about 1,040 kilograms (2,292.81 lb).

The Audi 80 competition and A4 STC reeled off a steady string of international titles starting in 1993. The 1996 season proved to be a historic year. The A4 quattro Supertouring entered seven national championships on three continents in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, South Africa and Australia. It won every single one of them. In the intensely competitive German STC Series, with a field of eight brands, the Italian Emanuele Pirro emerged on top, as did Frank Biela in rainy Great Britain. Two years later, the European governing body largely banished allwheel drive from touring car competition. It was simply too hard to beat.

Source: DVD quattro Highlights 2010 | Status: 03/2010