[V8] 5-speed Gut check....what's it worth (long update)

[Bryan Kamerer]

So much good advice.

I think what I will do is go ahead and buy a 97-00 Ford expedition (5.4l V8,
4x4, cheap) or 93-97 Toyota Land Cruiser (FJ80, 4.5l I6, a little more),
that will sort my daily driving and towing, and let me restore  to 99%
condition my 5-seed for the not terrible amount it will cost.

I love the car; its just not a daily "in town traffic" driver and that is
what is killing me.  But for giggles I'll tell my Audi V8 history; I've been
an owner since 95 or 96; and this is my second one, actually, and both
were/are 5 speeds.  Actually never driven an autobox one.  Some of the
history is funny and illuminating I think.

Back story: First car I had the sense and independence to buy on my own was
a '76 BMW 2002, about 1986 when I was in college.  Had to drive it from
Boston to Fla to 1/2 rebuild it, de-rust it, and re-paint it.  What a fun
and pretty car.  But I never want another car without air-con and with
horse-hair stuffed seats!  Eventually it didn't cut the mustard and I got an
'83 320i used from a friend.  It was not half the car the 2002 was, mind
you, but it looked good handled well when you could plan far enough ahead to
get up some steam.  It was terribly English in that regard.

 Then I moved to NYC, and cars were right out for 2 years.  I was so
desperate to drive, what I would do is whenever I traveled or had a free
weekend, I'd call Hertz and rent a Ford Thunderbird.  This was the era of
the "ThunderEgg" as they were known.  But they were rear wheel drive and
came in those years with the 5.0 liter Windsor V8 and then the 4.6L modular
V8.  Either was good, and you could do 180s with them on slick roads if you
played your cards right (please don't tell Hertz about this; I'm still a
Gold Club member and they are one of the few places that will still rent to
me!).  Heck, in 1994 this was the most fun you could have for $40 a day
outside of Vegas or with loose women.

Then I was insane from being trapped in the city, so I, being a glutton for
overbuilt, underpowered German cars, bought an 88 535is and just ponied up
to park it indoors on a pier on the Hudson so I could use it on weekends
when I had to.  Fun, but when I wanted to go to northern Vermont to ski
every possible weekend, it was more a death trap than a fun vehicle.  I
don't think the +1" BFG TA ZR's were helping much in the snow ;).
Thankfully my years of hard-driving in the 2002 and 320i taught me enough to
let me keep the 535is on the road in places I should not have.  But I was
smart and looked around, and all the Vermont locals drove Subarus or Audis.
The ones with full-time jobs, central heating at home  and all their teeth
uniformly had Audis.  Hmm..... (hey don't get me wrong, I like Subarus.  But
at the time, there was a class distinction in the northern territories along
car brands, I was just an observer).

So I started researching Audis.  This was circa 1995.  I did not love the
100s, and the S4 was too new to be on the radar.  As my brother says "Heck,
I work too hard for my money to just throw it away," so buying a new car is
not an option.  The V8 looked great on paper, except all the crap about the
auto tranny, and the reviews said it handled sluggishly.  Then I found an
article that mentioned the 5-speed variant from a few years back.  And I was
hooked.  Done and cooked.  Like I was with the first time I touched a
Peruvian horse, Colt .45s, S&W N-frames, Bourbon, and loose women.  So I
started hunting for one.  And six months later I had nada.  Nothing.  No
leads what so ever.  I was hunting ads all over, all the time.  In the
interim,I test drove a 95.5 S6 avant from the local Audi dealership.  It was
neat, but the engine screamed "turbo lag" and the wagon back-end screamed
"road noise", and it was $44k even with the "no one is buying these"
discount.  I drove a 100CS 5 speed and it screamed "buy me some wheels and a
motor!"  I tried a 200tq Avant and it was both of the above.  Tried a
slightly used S4 at Audi of Greenwich in Connecticut and it was nice, tight,
fast, and the turbo lag when it kicked in made you have a migraine.

I gave up on Audi, got a loan from my bank and went to go get a used Saab
9000.  Yep, I had sunk that low.  I consider buying a Saab pretty low.  But
it would be safer than the BMWs and far less costly than the unsatisfactory
Audis I had sampled.  I hate compromises, but that was it.  I had worked out
a deal with a guy in Westchester county on a clean '93 9000 and a few days
before I went to get the Saab, with the bank check on my desk, and
fortunately with the "Pay to:" line blank, the current *Autoweek* showed up
in my mail box, and there was a 91 V8 5-speed advertised in Nashua, NH for
$20k, excellent with 56k or so miles on it.  At the time, used S4s were $25
to 30k, and this was the weird, fabled '91 5 speed for 5k less?  So I
called.  The guy sounded, while taciturn as only native New Englanders can
be, honest and square.  Being, at the time, the wall street broker I was, I
offered $17k because I had the Saab check in hand for $15k and only about
$2k in checking, and he said "bring the check and cash, get it done."
Again, taciturn but a square shooter.  I bought a ticket on the shuttle from
LaGuardia to Boston on Saturday morning, had a college roommate meet me at
Logan and take me to a Porsche/Audi stealership in Nashua, NH where it was
on consignment.  It was spotless.  I found out he was an systems engineer
for some cable company and had helped build it into a regional player and
they all made millions and millions.  The Porsche/Audi guys were aghast he
was selling it so low, but he wanted it gone and he got all their Porsche
business.  I think it was taking up garage space for his new Carrera they
were prepping.  These are the kind of vehicle deals you like to find.

I took a glance at the car and knew it was for me.  Cyclamen red over tan.
Yum.  To this day that is still my favorite color combo, period.  Saw an '00
Toyota Land Cruiser that color combo last week and had to stop myself from
buying it out of pure addiction despite the fact I had no money.  Anyway,
just because I didn't want to look like a tool, I asked for a test drive and
the owner, who came to the dealership where it was on consignment, said
"sure."  He had his newest Porsche being prepped that morning, so he didn't
care, he just wanted to go ogle that.  Tip to the wise: If you can, always
buy used vehicles from pilots, mechanical engineers, and doctors/dentists.
Preferably wealthy ones.  I have had many good deals like that!

My college buddy and I took it out alone around Nashua, which neither of us
knew so we just got on the interstate and ran down and back.  The freaking
thing shifted like a Porsche 911 (stiff, long, and clunky), and growled like
a freight train (kinda sexy) in front of that polished burled wood dash.  My
buddy said, "Should it make this much noise?"  I said, "I dunno.  But I like
it."  The thing did not sound or drive like a luxury car, but it looked like
one.  Exactly what I wanted!  That V8 would wind  up and do just what the S4
did, but with no mess, fuss, whine, or lag, and with more room and style.
This was the thing.

I used it basically to commute back and forth from NYC to northern VT six
months of the year.  313 miles every Friday night, 313 miles every Sunday
night,  You could drop me today in downtown Manhattan, blindfold me, and I
can find my way to Warren, VT, I did it so many times.  And it was amazing.
Weather did not matter, road conditions did not matter.  Day/night did not
matter.  I tossed it up on the NY Thru-way (I-87) for 200 miles, put on the
cruise and relaxed.  Dry, wet, snow, did not matter.  Then 100 or so miles
of tight twisties in the moonlight through upstate NY and western VT was
just what it took to freshen you up after the week of stress.  I can recall
maybe one turn around Ft. Ticonderoga and another one about 60 miles later
near Bristol on VT 17 where I needed to use 3rd.  Then again on the steeps
through the App Gap where 17 tees into VT 100.   Else that lovely, broad
engine would just take all that terrain in 4th gear at speeds that would
make a highway patrolman or a loose woman blush.  I mean, two nights a week,
I was driving some of the finest back roads in America in this car.  At
night.  At speed.  With one arm up on that generous window ledge, like a
fighter pilot with his arm on the canopy rail while George had it.  And this
car just bombed it with aplomb.  Even my skittish ex-wife had no fear.  She
sat in the passenger seat reading a book by the the two overheads while I
was having a ball. It was a combination F-4 Phantom II and Boeing 747.  It
couldn't turn like a MIG 21, but it could do Mach 2 and everything
in-between: smooth, fast, and easy to handle.   Just like a Phantom, you
could do the Mach, or land it easy as a Cessna but at 140 knots.  And unlike
those S-cars, there was no turbo lag!  You hit that accelerator and it would
move.  If you downshifted and hit the accelerator, it snapped you to
attention.  I had won the automotive jackpot as far as my needs were
concerned.  It was a week-day Manhattan garage queen, but it was doing the
aerial equivalent of alpha-strikes over the Red River and Hanoi every
weekend (and coming home!).  What a ride.

The factory wheels lasted a year; they looked like crap, were hard to clean,
and the 60 profile was an insult to the build of the 5 speed.  As soon as
they hit the streets, I got some A8 take-offs and they looked lovely and the
50 profile so dramatically enhanced it.  I got some S6 Avus take-offs for
the snows.  An aside of this was when I needed service for it, I had no
place to do it myself being in Manhattan.  I needed to find a service place,
and Audi heads, I can't recall who but probably someone from this list at
the time, pointed me to someone some other listers may know - Bruno
Kreibich.  For those who don't know him, he was a rally strong-man, an
old-school German, a thorough gentleman and sportsman.  Shokan has some of
his cars now as keep-sakes.  Somehow, and I have no clue, when he got too
old for rally racing, he opened an Audi shop in Flatbush, Queens.  How he
got out there I have no idea.  Great shop.  Even the techs were German; when
you looked in his garage bays it was like an SS recruiting poster (pardon my
non-pc speak).  He had the name and panache to run an amazing shop.  I've
never seen a shop like that since; like a Swiss watch, knew everything about
every car, fairly priced, and honest as the day is long.  Never met anything
like it before or since.  I had to drive through what looked like to me the
third world to get there. I have since learned it is called "Brooklyn."
Scary place.  If you feel the need for danger, go there, do a tour in
Afghanistan, or take a vacation to Houston.  Besides a scary drive there, it
took an hour long train-ride back in order to leave the car for sevice, but
damn it was worth it. He liked my car a lot and always treated me very
nicely.  I know that he knew H.J. Stuck and Walter Rohrl, so he dug the
car.  About the 3rd time I had it in he started trusting me and talking
about rally racing, etc.  One evening he was getting nostalgic and said, "I
can show you a secret?"  I was like, "Sure."  Mostly because I had learned
from old war films and a few trips to Europe that you don't say "no" when a
German with an accent that thick asks you to keep a secret.  Anyway, he took
me out to the yard, where there were just rows of various 70s and 80s
Audis.  We went to the very back where there were three cargo containers.
He opened one, and he said, "Have you heard of Michele
Mouton<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mich%C3%A8le_Mouton>?"
Yeah, I knew (of) her!

Inside was the Quattro she had used to win the  Pike's Peak Hill Climb. I
think this was the fabled Qauttro
S1<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_Quattro_S1#S1>,
the car that got FIA to ban Group B racing.  FIA says it was because of
accidents.  Audi fans know it was because no one could compete against them
and FIA was just embarrassed and other makers were lobbying them to stop
Audi from winning.  I saw on Mouton's Wiki entry that there is a pic of her
in the car in 2007, so apparently I kept Bruno's secret long enough it was
resolved.   He even un-pinned the hood and lifted it to show me the engine.
He started talking some stuff and pointing about how they had re-routed the
intercooler lines and such to get it up to about 600bhp, etc., etc.
Apparently he thought I was smarter than I was because I was just standing
there thinking "Crap, this IS the Pikes Peak car!!!?  Michele Mouton!!!!!?
It doesn't have cup holders either!!!"  And I missed a lot of what he was
saying.  He explained there was some substantial unresolved financial angles
between Audi USA, Shokan, Joe what's-his-name in Miami, and him, and no one
was getting this car back until it was all settled.  This was his insurance
policy.  This made perfect sense as this was just as Audi was really getting
back on its feet after the "unintended acceleration" debacle, which was why
so many of us got great Audis so cheaply in the early/mid 90s.  I actually
got to sit in it, by the way.  Then he locked the container back up and
said, as only German's can, "Tell No One!"  Well, that was 15 years ago so
this is the first time I am telling it; I presume all has been resolved
since then.  I see pics now of it in Wikipedia now that I google it, so I am
apparently breaking no trust.  But honest to God, I've told no one this
story publicly in 15 years.

There's not much on Bruno on the web, he was all before that. But I know he
used to rally with Rohrl; I don't know if he raced with Stuck, but he must
have.  I did find some pics of him doing Mt. Washington:

Bruno <http://www.bufkinengineering.com/brunos_cars.htm>

BTW, if anyone has VHS to digital ability, I have a copy of the '91/'92
promo video that Audi made, I don't recall the German but the translation
was something like "Same Procedure as Last Year" and it is a documentary of
Stuck and Rohrl winning the DTM in 90 in the V8.  They won it again the next
year but with another driver/team, I forget who.  If someone wants to copy
and distribute it I will run the risk of angering the Audi (copyright) gods
by giving you an original (albeit VHS) copy to digitize and share.  It is
not long.

Alright, this is going to be a two-part "V8 history" monologue.  This is
installment 1 and number 2, which will be much less interesting, will come
tonight or early tomorrow.  Maybe I'll get a snap of my car between now and
then for illustrative purposes; I've actually never taken digital pictures
of it.

Bryan