Mr T's secret "A" Team project revealed

You don’t get to be part of an elite special forces unit unless you are exceptional at what you do and have plenty of years of hard training under your belt. By the time BA (Bad Attitude) Baracus finally burst onto our TV screens in the mid eighties, he had already earned his spurs the hard way.

He was the perfect man to keep the famed GMC Vandura van on the road and ahead of the military police that were to chase him and his pals around the States for the next 5 years. Few who watched the show would have believed that back in the mid seventies, our hero would have been found at Audi’s headquarters in Ingolstadt dreaming up a plan to achieve world domination for his paymasters in the world rally championships. But read on…….

In a world exclusive, we can reveal that as early as 1977, Audi’s chassis man Jörg Bensinger was already working closely with Audi’s prototype engineer (and later completion manager), Walther Treser (aka Mr “T”) to build a 4 × 4 Audi 80. This turned out to be the birth place of the UR Quattro that we know and love today. Driven by rally greats such as Hannu Mikkola, Michele Moutin, Walter Rohrl and Stig Blomqvist, the car dominated Group B world rallying with overall championship wins in 1982 and 1984 and runner up slots in 1983 and 1985.

Today, the UR Audi Quattro needs no introduction. Everybody knows about it’s legendary performance and the new boundaries it pushed in both road car performance and rallying during the early 1980’s. Most people would think that it would be tricky to better the Quattro. The car already had a 200 bhp, 2144 cc, 5 cylinder turbocharged engine and was a homologation special, fitted with Audi’s four wheel drive system and powerful ABS brakes. But our Mr T thought otherwise.

Walther Treser left Audi in 1982 to set up his own Audi tuning and styling business, simply called – Treser. The company quickly expanded its products throughout the Audi range and rapidly built up a reputation as the leading Audi tuner. Agencies soon followed in the UK, North America, Asia, Japan and Australia. A fantastic customer base evolved culminating with the Sultan Of Oman buying 5 Treser Quattro’s and 4 of the now famous Treser Quattro Roadsters.

Treser’s results with the Quattro were truly staggering and resulted in the 0-60 time falling from 7.8 to 7.2 seconds and the 0-100 time down from 21.7 to an astounding 18.7 seconds. So, when we heard that one of these extremely rare and special Quattro’s needed to find a new home, we were delighted to set out on our own mission to help find a new owner for this motoring icon.

This 3 owner, 37,000 mile example was privileged enough to visit Treser’s UK agent at Central Garage in Surrey with the first owner in 1985. Despite a hefty price tag of £17,000, which was typical of German performance cars during that time, the first owner parted with further £5900 and treated his pride and joy to the full Treser tuning package. The engine was modified with the Treser ported and large valve cylinder head, larger turbo, Treser air box, Treser exhaust, suspension, wheels, seats, gearknob, front and rear bumpers and the large rear spoiler. The Treser stripes (forerunner to the legendary red diagonal version seen on the GMC Vandura) and black light lenses finished the cosmetics off. The final package has to be driven to
appreciate just how clever Mr T was.

At Classic Heroes we have a long waiting list for cars of this originality and such a special place in motoring history. We are delighted to inform you that the car has now found a new home and is in the final stages of preparation in our workshops in readiness for it’s next adventure.

I love it when a plan comes together.

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