New Addition

[Fisher, Scott]

Robert Turlington writes:

> OK now, I'm confused.  The back end of the car has a 4E badge
> on it, and 5th gear seems REALLY Tall - like 2100 RPM's @ 
> 60mph....but its only a 4 cyl....is this a real 4E?  Was it
> available in 82 w/ a 4 cyl?

The 4E was ONLY available with a 4 cylinder -- that's what the 4 stands for;
the E (in the US, at least) stood for Economy.  Remember, in the early '80s,
the world had gone through two fuel crises in recent years, and fuel economy
was a big deal everywhere.  Ferdinand Piech, in fact, was quoted as saying
-- by way of explaining why the Audis had such large gas tanks -- that when
the world finally ran out of oil, he didn't want an Audi to be the first car
to roll to a stop.

I had the first-year (in the US) Audi 4000, model year 1980, which I
acquired new in 1980.  That year it had the 1588cc Rabbit/Scirocco 4cyl (78
bhp, I think) with Bosch CIS and a 4-speed gearbox.  My sense at the time
was that Audi -- or at least the US importers -- weren't sure whether they
wanted to market the car as having the economy of a VW with nicer fittings
and better handling, or whether they wanted to market it as being a
less-expensive alternative to the BMW 320i with almost comparable
performance but (IMHO, as I drove both cars) more engaging handling and more
driver involvement.

In late 1981, if memory serves, Audi split the 4000 line into two basic
models: the 4000 4E, which Robert has, and the 4000 5+5, which is what Chris
seems to be thinking of.  The 4E had the next-generation VW 4-cylinder --
1715cc, if I recall, with less power but more torque -- and a veeeeery tall
5th gear, as Robert indicates, intended as a very economical overdrive for
highway cruising.  The 5+5 had the I5 with a five-speed gearbox; I'm not
sure whether the tuning or gearing were different from the Coupe, which was
introduced sometime later with (of course) very different bodywork.  I
coveted the 5+5 when I had my 4000, as the main things I wanted from that
car were more power and more gears.  

Somewhere in the stack of not-yet-unpacked boxes in our new house is a
contemporary Road & Track magazine from 1981, in which they road-test the
then-new Audi Coupe.  They echoed my sense of perceiving confusion in Audi's
US marketing branch, but were very complimentary of the new Coupe, selecting
it as one of the Ten Best Cars for the Eighties in another article in the
same magazine.  One really remarkable point made in that issue: the Coupe
registered 0.80g on the skidpad, a figure which was exceeded in the 1981
magazine's road test summary only by a handful of cars such as various
Porsches, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis.  I can only echo Huw's comment from
some time ago that much of what we love about our quattros is shared by,
even derived from, the FWD Audi line.

For what it's worth, I *loved* my 4000 -- well, duh, for this list. :-)  I
made several vacation trips in it as well as commuting and generally
enjoying the hell out of it for three years.  I foolishly traded it in on a
first-year 1983 GTI, solely on the basis of the GTI's more power and better
gearing (the '83 GTI's 5th gear was 1:1, meaning that the steps between
gears were smaller than in a 4-speed with overdrive 5th).  Within months I
wished I'd had the 4000 back.  Ah well, that was far from the stupidest
thing I've ever done with cars.