THE SECOND COMING

It's 40 years since Audi launched the Sport quattro, with which it prolonged its dominance of Group B rallying. Glen Waddington celebrates with legendary driver Stig Blomqvist

Of course, we Octane types love to drive. But sometimes the passenger seat is a very privileged spot indeed. And here I am, sitting next to Stig Blomqvist, 1984 World Rally Champion and runner-up in 1985.

Both of those notable championships were with Audi Sport. And the 1984 season was the one in which the Ingolstadt company turned up the wick, building a shorter, more powerful Group B weapon to keep it at the top of the table, Technik having done its Vorsprung to perfection. That car was the Sport quattro and, 40 years on, man and machine are in harmony once more. Though perhaps with a less experienced co-driver this time.

This is not the first occasion on which I’ve shared the cockpit with the veteran Swedish rally driver, nor my first time in this car. Back in 2021 we were in San Romolo, scene of a closed-road mountain stage in the Rallye Sanremo 40 years earlier, when Michèle Mouton had taken her maiden Group B win, and Audi its second Group B victory (and third podium finish). It’s also the scene of the Sport quattro’s final victory, in 1985. This particular Sport quattro was built in 1984, of course, and finished in second place on the Rallye Monte-Carlo in January 1985, piloted by Audi Sport works driver Walter Röhrl with Christian Geistdörfer, before it became a testing and experimental vehicle – hence its remarkable state of preservation.

Part of the Audi Tradition collection, it still features its original turbocharged five-cylinder engine, although the museum’s own engineer granted that the boost has been reduced just a little in the name of conservation, so maybe the output is down slightly on its former 414bhp at 7500rpm. But you wouldn’t know that, not given the pace with which Stig blasted it away from the Ristorante Dall’Ava and around the winding single-tracks of the Cinque Valli, high above the elegant Mediterranean resort of Sanremo.