It was in March 1980 that the German automaker Audi revealed their upcoming major release on the automotive scene of their vision and interpretation of a high-performance four-wheel-drive coupe. There at the International Motor Show 1980 Geneva ready for the press to drive and the public to view as well as relish was a brand new 4 wheel drive design clothed in a two-door bodywork that would serve as a basis for a multiple winner of the Word Rally Championship during that decade of the 1980’s.

More significantly the properly written “quattro” (the lower case “q” was registered as the company’s trademark in 1984) would make every other motor manufacturer look at four-wheel- drive in a brand new light. Indeed it might be said that this product led the way to our current acceptance of the benefits of and practicalities even for city drivers and the current large market share of Sports Utility SUV Vehicles and the technical and design elements thereof.

Many of the major auto makers and manufacturers thus followed up on the four-wheel drive route seeing the possibilities and opening up of a whole new market. Previously four wheel drive vehicles were seen as a rather complex product in a limited use and size market not worth the trouble either at the auto design and manufacturing levels or by car & most truck buyers and consumers.

Thus the Audi quattro workup pioneered the way. Many other established and more staid auto factories thus this novel all-wheel-drive road albeit using various and diverse means of technical solutions of what might be assessed in hindsight of varying merit and long term durability and merits. As a result a whole host of new four wheel drive cars and assorted vehicles with these drive trains were announced and became road worthy in the era of the late 1980’s.

It can be said that Audi has a good and established history of being thorough, comprehensive and complete in its technical workups and assessments. Audi itself had made a full assessment of what had gone before in this field and made what was then considered the unprecedented use of existing parts and previous military 4-wheel-drive knowledge, slashing development times as well as overall production costings with unmatched ingenuity.

In effect the company’s engineers reinvented four-wheel drive fully for two primary purposes. The first was to overcome the limited abilities of what were then considered powerful front- or rear-drive cars to cope with the new high-output generation of turbocharged motors. Secondly having shown that both speed and safety could be incorporated into one very practical package, they had to demonstrate the inherent advantages in the most public manner possible.

While it might be said that Audi itself was not the innovator of acceptable four-wheel drive setups in the car consumer ring that had been done with British Ferguson Formula FF Interceptor V8 Coupes it was Audi itself who successfully marketed the concepts to the niche market masses.

Audi chose to promote their product essentially via the vehicle of highly visible World Championship Rally Racing causing the entire perceptions of current 4-wheel-drive technologies and auto consumer market acceptance to be rewritten in the process.

It might be said that the SUV marketplace segment was pioneered, introduced and developed by the Audi quattro four-wheel-drive automobiles.

Author Bio: Samuel Samuels
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