[V8] '93 V8

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Oh, how do I not love thee?  Let me count the ways!

Now before we begin to hyperventilate over the '93 V8 on eBay, here are 
my observations now fully OUT of the Audi Quattro orbit.

Yes, it's pretty and has low miles.  BUT the seller while he waxes 
poetic about the wonderful condition of the car leaves out ALL the most 
important bits and pieces of information and worse: he makes false 
statements and misleads with others.

First of all, he mentions the car has European headlights.  True enough 
in that they probably were installed and made in Europe but they are US 
DOT headlights just like any other Audi for US automatically had.

The car has "period correct" wheels.....well, maybe they were made in 
1993, but they are NOT correct for this car and are n no way a proper 
wheel for a V8 unless he specifies the wheels are the correct offset.  
Also, no mention of what brakes are on the car and I suspect the seller 
may not even be aware of why this might or might not be important.

Despite the nice cosmetic appearance, the right front corner Audi logo 
is missing from the lower body molding.  This is not uncommon and I am 
not sure the pieces are even still available to make this little piece 
that annoys the devil out of me, "period correct".

and naturally, the seller ignores, doesn't realize, dosen't care, or 
perhaps no one else did, the belly pan is missing from the car, and I 
suspect it will be a long search to find another one that isn't beaten 
to death in the wrecker yard.

The cell phone in the arm rest was standard equipment in ALL V8's ever 
imported to the US.  It was NOT an optional extra.

Finally although the seller claims all services are up to date, I would 
need to KNOW when the timing belt service was last done, because I'll 
bet you lunch it wasn't within the past dozen years.

Now, having said all those negative things, would I, as an experienced 
Audi V8 owner consider buying this car?

Simply put: NO.  Not even if I could fly out to whereever this car is 
and along with a qualified mechanic do a thorough PPI. The reason is 
that the car is simply obsolete.  There are far too many newer cars on 
the road for small dollars that do what this car does at a far lower 
cost per mile.  At some point the V8 quattro will be a true "collectors" 
car. That is to say, thee LAST V8 Quattro running in perfect condition 
with 10,000 miles from new will be for some museum collection of some 
eccentric millionaire who has forgotten what cars he has in his 
collection.  Otherwise, no: just another Audi oddity in Audi's long 
history of such vehicles.

I LOOOOVED my V8's and enjoyed having them, especially the last one 
which was white pearl over black with charcoal headliner.  But they all 
took a kind of dedication to maintenance that was expensive that is 
simply no longer appropriate for me.  Time and my enthusiasm has moved on.

Roger