quattro Digest, Vol 5, Issue 100

[l.leung at juno.com]

Sticker (had it when I bought the car) on my '84 4KQ was
$17,600. Basically a standard 4KQ, as the only availible
options were the manual 3-way sunroof ($280), AM-FM Cassette
4 speaker sound ($400), and leatherette (not real cows on
4K's, DEFINITELY REAL COW's on UrQ's!) seating, which my 
car didn't have. Everything else was standard in '84, including
the hand crank rear windows, and no availble trip computer.

SOOOO much less involved engine management (TG!) but similar 
drivetrain as the UrQ. Bear in mind the UrQ served as the development
car for the 4KQ drivetrain, so it bore the brunt of the 
D-costs. It also bore most of the cost of development of
the Turbo I-5, as I believe (you can check the archives or
the Audiworld history archives) that the type 43 turbo came 
after the original 1980 UrQ.

Does this help with cost perspective. 

One other thing, the US price of the UrQ was right in line with 
the 185 HP 911 SC which were priced btw $36-38.5 K when the UrQ
was intro'd to the US.

LL - NY





Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 08:49:32 -0500
From: Huw Powell <audi at humanspeakers.com>
Subject: Re: Audi's Future
To: David <duandcc_forums at cox.net>
Cc: "Ingo D. Rautenberg" <ingo at waratap.com>, UrqList
	<urq at audifans.com>,	quattro at audifans.com
Message-ID: <4062E36C.7030206 at humanspeakers.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed


> Maybe somebody can shed some light on something for me. WHY was the
> Urq $35,000? The 4000q has basically the same drivetrain other than
> the turbo engine, right? Was the turbo engine really worth a $28,000
> premium? I mean both are typ85 cars with quattro. It's not like the
> body was that much more expensive to make, they made the CGT which is
> essentially the same body without flares for less than the price of a
> 4000q. 

Let's start with what a 4kq and coupe cost, to see what that premium 
actually is.  Start with 35k - 28k = 7k.  4kq's definitely were *not* $7 
new, ever.

My '82 coupe, with no options except A/C, was $16k.  My old boss's '85 
4kq, pretty much loaded, was $20k.

So the "premium" is in the $15k to 19k region, and I'd rather use the 
smaller figure, since I suspect a $35 UrQ had leather, power windows, 
heated seats, etc.

And a turbo engine system that was not in any other car, along with a 
fistful of body and other components that were unique to this, as 
someone pointed out, much smaller run car.

Still seems like a lot, but if these are *US* prices specifically, keep 
in mind that Audi had to crash test cars and build a unique bumper 
system for what turned out to be an export figure of around 800 cars 
over a few years.

So while the "premium" seems high, it probably made sense.

-- 
Huw Powell

http://www.humanspeakers.com/audi

http://www.humanthoughts.org/