An Audi Quattro heads to auction with a staggering guide price of £220,000 to £280,000 and confirms the car firmly out of the reach of being afforded by police detectives
The catchphrase Fire up the Quattro will forever be associated with the eighties time travelling police drama Ashes to Ashes but now with the sale of a 1985 Audi Quattro Sport SWB coupé, this model of car has now firmly set itself well out of the reach of what a police detective could possibly afford.
One of 214 examples of the Quattro Sport produced and one of just 164 acutally sold, the 2.1-litre Quattro Sport on offer has covered just 24,285 miles from new. It is understood to be one of the original six cars delivered to the UK and is described as being in “excellent condition” and having “the best colour scheme in terms of the model’s rallying heritage”.
In the first series of BBC One’s Ashes to Ashes, DCI Gene Hunt – played by Philip Glenister – replaces a Ford Cortina he had owned in the series Life on Mars with a red Audi Quattro after getting divorced. This “top cop” became an unlikely “national hero” and was even lauded by India Knight, writing in The Sunday Times, as having a “combination of power and, shall we say, lack of political correctness [that] can be a potent one – which is why everyone in Britain fell in love with Gene Hunt, the hulking great throwback in the BBC series Life on Mars and that men wanted to be Hunt; women wanted to be with him”.
One thing is for sure: DCI Gene Hunt most certainly wouldn’t be able to afford to bid when this particular Quattro is offered with a staggering guide of £220,000 to £280,000 and for sale at the Bonhams inaugural Members’ Meeting Sale at Goodwood, Chichester on the 21st March 2015.
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The price seems ridiculous but it will no doubt appreciate further. One of the best built cars of that era.
This puts yesterday’s Mercedes Grosser into perspective
In the ’90’s I had three of these cars. My business partner thought that as I was a lousy driver it would keep me safe. Makes me sick to think that each one was replaced at 10,000 miles
Anyway, would I buy one again? Certainly not. They were fine in their day but though I have no great interest in cars I can think of many modern cars I would much rather have….including the new Targa.
I don’t even think they were well mad…just safely fast and very noisy.