A unique conversion from north of the border makes this sedan diesel flavored.
It’s still rather easy to spot a first-gen Audi A4 on the road, even though their numbers have receded a bit over the past decade, but it’s a taller order to see one of its immediate predecessors in use today. The Audi 80 and 90 were the duo that preceded the A4, but for a number of reasons they didn’t quite have the same staying power as, say, Hall and Oates, another popular duo of the time.
The Audi 80, of course, arrived as a replacement to the car known stateside as the Audi 4000 and that debuted in 1980. The 4000 was certainly popular enough in its day if not quite as ubiquitous as some of its competition from Mercedes and BMW. The tank-like feel of the 4000 made it a favorite car of enthusiasts, but it wasn’t quite the luxury experience served up by the BMW 3-Series of the time.
Audi sought to change that with the next generation, known as the B3, which entered production in 1986, and which was sold stateside as the 80 and 90, staying here until the 1992 model year. During this time the inline-four versions of this car were known as the 80, while the five-cylinder versions were badged as the 90—a distinction that was perhaps not marketed exceedingly well.
Its replacement, codenamed B4, entered production in 1991 and represented a thorough reworking of the previous model. But it was not wildly different on the outside. And this time around, the sedan was intended to take on the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and the BMW 3-Series more directly.
This Audi 90 wore 2.5 TDI badging when we saw it several times over the course of a weekend.
Autoweek
As usual, Europe received a fairly extensive but not overwhelming variety of engines as well as the station wagon that North America was cheated out of (even though we have the coupe). A variety of small gasoline inline-fours was on the menu, in addition to some rather potent inline-fives, including a turbocharged 2.2-liter in two states of tune for the S2 and RS2 Avants.
And if you were of the diesel persuasion, a 1.9-liter turbo-four was on the roster as well, but only if you were buying one of these in Europe.
Stateside, the Audi was offered only with the 2.8-liter V6, arriving in 1992, and it was the only engine offered here until the product cycle ended and the A4 arrived. And at first glance, that’s what this Audi 90 Quattro appeared to have.
“But, as you well know, appearances can be deceiving,” to quote Agent Smith from the first Matrix film. This particular sedan wore 2.5-liter TDI badging when we saw it, and it didn’t look like it was kidding about that. This required some further investigation. After all, how many of these could there possibly be out there?
This Audi 90 also received a front bumper from the Audi RS2—a far rarer machine in all respects.
Autoweek
It turns out, this 90 Quattro was in fact the recipient of a 2.5-liter TDI engine, which is safe to say the sole such build in this hemisphere.
Originally powered by a 2.8-liter V6 (built in 1993), the owner of this example decided not to mess with it after a water pump failed, and sourced an engine from a rare 1990 Audi 100 TDI, pairing it with a six-speed manual transmission. Quite a few other modifications were performed, including S2 intercooler and crossmember, RS2 shift linkage, and an RS2 front bumper.
The owner indicated at the time that simplicity, rather than raw power, was the goal. This build was ambitious—it’s not something we’d want to attempt without several experienced VWAG techs on site for help and several thousand dollars (Canadian or US) worth of tools.
The results? They can be readily observed in this video, as the Audi drifts around its natural habitat in the winter. But if you’re interested in the build process, the owner also outlined it in detail at the time.
Such a build is impressive for many reasons, including stomaching the shipping costs for a number of components from Europe, and the amount of minute knowledge one must have about the B4 platform to begin with. But it does prove, once again, that this generation of Ingolstadt’s smallest sedan was quite open to plug-and-play engineering, making this type of conversion possible in the right hands.
Jay Ramey Jay Ramey grew up around very strange European cars, and instead of seeking out something reliable and comfortable for his own personal use he has been drawn to the more adventurous side of the dependability spectrum.
Keyword: Street-Spotted: Audi 90 Quattro 2.5 TDI