Re: Diff talk, S1 &Hannu Mikkola, Buffum

["Jouko Haapanen" <joukoh@vtoy.fi>]

Hannu made a point of mentioning the sometimes limited success of
reliability and sensibility of some of the new technology in the rally cars.
Audi was the only factory team actually being run by the factory.  Hence,
they were the test bed for all kinds of things later adopted (or not) to
production cars.  He felt that had they been given free hands to develop the
quattro as a race car, it would have been unbeatable.  They were not given
that choice, and yet they were very successful, though the latter efforts
were never given a chance to mature for two reasons in Hannu's opinion:
1.too many new ideas to test for Audi in order to systematically develop as
a race car, 2.time ran out on group B, and subsequent group A/type 44
efforts were not a basis for success, even though Hannu won at Safari and
placed second at Acropolis.

Jouko Haapanen
Pori, Finland



-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Mo. <scottmo@teleport.com>


--snip--
>
>Hannu says:
>"Because the layout of the S1 Quattro is so similar to that of the road
>Audis, I also like to know that the work were doing is valuable to
>customers. This is a very quick way to develop new systems and
>components. If we can use them in the production cars, it justifies the
>money we're spending. One of the new differentials we've been developing
>is likely to go into other Quattros."
>