A British company called Audacious Automotive is busy combining the V8 Audi RS4 (B7 generation) and the original Quattro into a single glorious retromod (making a new car look like an old one). Its latest take on the formula will redesign the 4.2-liter Audi V8 engine into four different beasts. Including one that can spin to 10,000 rpm, and one that can do the same thing with a supercharger attached.
Retromod Gets Better Than Modern Horsepower
Audacious Automobiles (1)Audacious Automobiles
The B7-generation of Audi’s RS4, the one built from 2004-2009, featured something very few compact luxury performance cars ever have. A V8 engine and a manual transmission. The 4.2-liter engine made 414 horsepower in the sedan and wagon, and later versions made even more power.
Audacious is planning to blow that factory output away, with four different versions of the 4.2. The first is a supercharged version of what was a naturally aspirated engine. This one is the so-called baseline engine, and it will make 600 hp.
Next up is the stage two engine. This one has new internals, more cooling, and extra development focused around helping it live while making 750 hp.
Then there are the fun ones. Audacious is planning what it calls a “bespoke high speed engine program requiring dedicated engineering, manufacture, testing, and validation.” This one will be naturally aspirated, but it will rev to 10,000 rpm. 2,000 more than the stock version of the 4.2, which was already glorious to take to that magical redline.
If that’s not enough, Audacious plans to supercharge it. The company isn’t even making estimates as to how much power these cars might make, but they will still get a six-speed manual and Torsen-based AWD. Audacious will be working with Audi engine specialists LAA Performance to help create the four options.
Surprisingly, this project starts with an actual Ur quattro. That’s what Audi now calls the original Quattro coupes, and the “Ur” isn’t a sound of confusion but rather a prefix meaning “original.”
Tonight Is The Night When Two (Audis) Become One
Audi Ur Quattro V8 Custom Build Doors OpenUR Quattro V8 / Facebook
We’ve covered one of these builds before, when the company had a slightly different name. The two cars were stripped back to their bare metal shells before being combined. Audacious says that the new cars, called the Audacious IV commissions, are designed with carbon fiber bodywork in mind, so that can be fitted instead of steel.
The project started more than a year ago, and there are plenty of images of the original build. They’re all filled with lasers and jigs and everything else that you need to make a build like this work.
Getting rid of Audi’s now iconic five-cylinder stock engine is at least a little bit blasphemous, but comes with good reason. An early 2.1-liter car or even the later 2.2 is never going to make anywhere near 750 hp, at least not stock. Even the final rally cars could only just get to 600, and those engines had lives measured in hours.
Modern braking and suspension designs from the RS4 should make the car a better handler than the original. If the build is done right, it should feel much more satisfying than the original car, though not as raw until you get near that redline. We can’t wait to see the final result.
