A6 4.2L - pros and cons?

[Tony Hoffman]

Yes, the V8 was the first mass production alluminum block. Before
that, only the Sport Quattro road and rally cars had alluminum blocks.

The "AVUS" concept car was the one that was all aluminum, also had the
first "W" shaped engine. In this case, it was not based on teh "VR"
engines that the production W engines are. It was, in fact, an engine
with three inline fours, staggered in the shape of a "W", with a total
of something like 144 degrees, IIRC.

The A8 went into production in 1994, came to the US in 1997, I
believe. I have some magazines that cover it, but I'd have to dig them
up. It was based on the "ASF" concept car, which was produced in about
1992.

Tony

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Mark J. Besso
<mbspeed at maxboostracing.com> wrote:
> I think the big deal with aluminum on the original V8Q was they used it for
> the engine block.  I believe all previous Audis used cast iron blocks.
>
> For major chassis use of aluminum it would be the intro of the A8 as far as
> production cars.  I think they experimented with it for the Quattro Spyder
> concept car for both chassis and engine block in the early '90s.
>
> ~Mark
>