I know this Audi 5000 is still being driven, as I saw it pull up to the curb here. I’ve seen a couple of grimy ones sitting around that look quite immobile, but this one looks downright hale and hearty.
I did a thorough CC on the Audi c3 here, and covered its unintended acceleration debacle here, so I’m going to mostly let you chime in. But needless to say, these cars developed a rep for being a bit brittle, at least in the US. I make that qualifier because this applies to most FWD Audi/VW cars of the whole era, from the first ones until…well, you decide. But In Europe, where these cars typically were built in simpler versions, without all the power accessorizes, automatics, emission controls, air conditioning, etc., and where the mechanics were intimately familiar with them, their rep is rather different: cars that might have a few weak spots, but generally robust and not hard to keep running.
I noticed that this one is a stick. That alone may have improved its odds of survival, although it does look very well kept. It’s not likely that this was a grandma car found hiding in the garage after sitting there for a few decades. But who knows?
All I know is that it’s obviously in the hands of a loving owner. And that it’s still plying the streets of Eugene. That’s more than enough.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen one of these babies in a long, long time.
Why 5000 in the US and not just 100?
100 sounds too small? 😉
The C1 100 quickly developed a really bad reputation, so presumably Audi didn’t want to have any carryover from that model. Of course the 5000 acquired a mostly bad rep too, so Audi went back to 100 shortly after this one. 🙂
I was about to recollect my first sighting of the Audi 5000, but I find I already did years ago in the CC you linked to. Can’t resist, here’s my comment again, still true:
I still remember clearly the first time I saw this car, clearer than just about any car sighting before or since. It was in traffic on the way home, I was driving the old beater ’73 Nova (which I got after getting T-boned in a VW). This Audi was the pure obvious future just going down the road. Knocked my eyes out with its sleek smooth surfaces and shape.
Four years later I was driving a Sable.
I’ll add here in 2018 that it’s a real shame cars like this are considered obsolete by so many Americans.
Perspective. When this car first hit our shores, everyone noticed it, car folks and non car folks alike. The flush window glass and smooth shape was not seen before. The Ford Taurus made the look common. It’s so common now that it goes unnoticed.
There’s one driving around Erie, PA (may be the 100/200-badged version) in great condition.
This is in much better shape than the last one I saw, which was memorable for its beater status.
Last month I was at a Dollar Tree in rural Missouri, when I saw an Audi 5000 (or may have been an ’89 or ’90 100) in the parking lot. Rural Dollar Trees are not exactly a natural habitat for 30-year-old European cars, so it sort of stood out. And if the car wasn’t actually in a business’s parking lot, I would have doubted that it ran. Dents everywhere, missing pieces, and a mini-spare on one of the back wheels.
While I was still in the parking lot, a man got in the Audi and drove away (no muffler, by the way). He drove like a bat out of he** — even within Dollar Tree’s parking lot, and then peeled out onto the main road. That poor Audi.
About a half hour later, I was driving out of the same town, and saw the Audi pulled over by a state trooper. Later in the day, the car was still sitting there.
An almost surreal fate for a luxury car from a few decades earlier.
I’m in Britain, I had a ’86 Audi 100/5000, 2.2 CD with a stick. Yep, it was a brilliant car. No probs at all. Conventional wisdom here advised steering clear of automatic transmission audis, they definitely wouldn’t last the distance. That 5 pot engine was a wonderful thing though, revvy, torquey, not too thirsty and sounded great. I loved mine. I sold it on at 170k miles still going strong. Bear in mind in my country, the competition included the Rover SD1, the Renault 25, Peugeot 604. In that company the Audi made sense.
I looked at the picture with this article and tried to remember the US landscape when this was new and considered so revolutionary looking.
This car seems so ordinary….even plain, to the point of almost being nondescript in today’s world.
Is it just me, or were 90% of these cars painted that same white/off white?
Wow, CC effect. Just last Sunday I saw a dark blue Audi C3 200, the first for ages.
Back then, I firmly believed that the Audi 5000 was the most beautiful car in the world.
This one still looks great.
The Audi C 3 is still one of my all time favourite designs. The smooth body, with flush glass still screams “the future.” The seats in these cars were sublime and they weren’t that heavy, so the 5 cylinder would move it along nicely.
Much of the problems I personally saw with the C 3 cars is guys used to wrenching on GM sleds putting the wrong fluids in them. For example, putting Dexron in the power steering of a C 3 was instant death to the whole system.
Part of the problem was also VAG not really being interested in things like automatic transmissions and air conditioning that actually worked for long. My dad’s 1986 Jetta GL Turbodiesel saw every single power accessory fail soon after the warranty was up, one after one. The car had like 400,000 km on it, so the basic engine-transmission body was pretty stout stuff. The point being that VW just didn’t deem it necessary to have reliable accessories, because few of their German customers at the time bought them. That didn’t do them any favours in North America.
Another factor still rings true: Germans are more used to wrenching on cars than we are. I have a good friend who lives near the big Wolfsburg plant. She constantly complains about fixing VW cars, but won’t drive anything else. It employs much of her family.
According to the factory service manuals, most modern GM cars that still had hydraulic power steering are supposed to power steering fluid, not Dexron. Many shops use Dexron because it is cheaper. Many also believe the fluids are the same even though they have different part numbers and Safety Data Sheets.
It wasn’t just maintenance issues or accessory issues. Things broke on these that would last the life of the car in other brands. That includes things like locks, latches etc. The basic electrical system was dodgy, too. Things like , apply the brakes and watch one backup light and one signal come on, switches that snapped in two. I can’t remember everything that went wrong with my parent’s car , recounting all would take a page count akin to War and Peace. But, as an example, one time the clip holding the PRNDL bulb popped out of place, grounded against the shift lever, off went the radio and down went the antenna along with half the the interior electrics. I found the blown fuse, only to have it blow again. How was I to know to lift off the PRNDL cover and find the metal bulb housing touching the shift mechanism?
Another one I had as a demo when was selling VW, decided not to latch it’s passenger door, luckily I knew enough to fiddle for some minutes until it did. Nope, these things were complete crap.
And don’t get me started on the mind-numbing depreciation.
These things made Yugos and Ladas look like Blue-Chip investments.
Unquestionably a lovely design. But I found the NSU Ro80 more dynamic and captivating to my eyes.
Compare the rear three-quarter view. The 5000 looks almost conservative compared to the Ro80. Can’t say I was ever especially impressed with that thick black body molding that surrounds the 5000. No doubt, the 5000 was a strikingly clean design, while the NSU design amazingly managed to remain exciting.
The black body moulding makes it look like a generic “Anycar’ like you see in an architect’s impression.
Yes, the LL are black body moulding kills the style of these for me. That and the fact that it looks like an Eagle Premier to me.
These earlier cars just vanished one day from the streets. I drove a 72 Fox for one year and my mother a 74 100 for 6 years and then by the end of the 80’s that was it. Haven’t seen one of them since that time in the Bay Area. I can completely understand the bad rep even though when running well they were nice cars. Been just as long since I have seen a 5000.
I saw one at work last year, I believe. Hadn’t seen one in years.
My one memory of these Audi’s- when appraising them for trade in, I never once looked at one where all four power windows went up and down.
friends of my parents had one of these with my favorite license plate ever. HAUDI
I drive my 1984 Audi 5000S Avant 550 miles a week on the Detroit freeway system commuting to work. It is a low rent FWD automatic that is gussied up to look like a Turbo-Quattro version. Keeping one running is not for the faint of heart, especially finding parts. It is a joy to drive but always needs something.
WOW, DDing a 30+ year old VAG product deserves some kind of medal or plaque.
I owned a 74 Fox for about 2 years. I was impressed with some of the ingenious details, like headlights that could be aimed by lifting the hood and turning some knobs on the back of the headlight housing, but infuriated by others, like the jack that looked like it was carried over from the very first Type 1 VW.
I DD a 25 year old Audi product. A 1993 80 wagon with a stick and a 1.9l diesel engine.
I see very few of these for sale, compared to BMWs and Benzes of that era, mostly because a lot fewer survived.
What’s interesting is that my 86 Golf, a cheaper car, while not bulletproof, was a very good car over 13 years and 145k miles, and I would not be surprised if it is still on the road.
VW/Audi
I bought one used. Worst mistake I ever made, even though it was still under warranty. Auto trans replaced twice due to seal failure, PS system leaked expensive dealer-only green juice made by magic Black Forest gnomes, it ate fuel pumps for lunch, the window lift cables broke, and when the warranty was over and it grenaded its third trans, I let the bank take it back. I was getting pretty good at replacing in-tank fuel pumps and fixing the window lifts…
This car has had the manual retrofitted. No non-quattro models had a manual option, at least in the US, and it would have a Quattro badge on the tail if it was one. They did sell a handful of non-turbo Quattros.
I’m 99.9% certain (and doublechecked my sources) that the manual WAS in fact available for the 1987 model year on the 5000S (fwd). However this (1987 model year) was the first year of it being available that way over here. Prior that it was only on the quattro as you stated (for the 5000 line at least, CoupeGT and 4000 could previously be had as manual)
https://www.audiworld.com/model/5000/87-5000.shtml
http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1987/234515/audi_5000_s.html
The ’84 brochure lists a manual available also.
Agh, thanks for the correction, Roger! Perhaps I misread the Automobile Catalog entry. Now I’m unsure if a manual was or was not available for ’85 and ’86 as well. I didn’t think so but the info is out there somewhere…
In addition to selling some non-turbo quattros they also sold some non-quattro turbos in these early years of this body style.
I owned a manual 1985 FWD non-turbo Avant from about 1989 to 1994 in California and then in Canada. Original owner had picked it up in Germany, but it was definitely US-spec. Excellent long-range cruiser, very reliable. Only failure I remember was driver’s window regulator.
I forgot to mention that I was selling these things in this era, but I never ever saw a stick unless it was a Quattro, in which case there was no choice.
I had a non-Turbo ’87 5000 Quattro as a demo for a short time.
Nice find, Paul!
Recently I have come to think of reliability a lot and I find it harder and harder to figure out how reliable a car really is. This Audi is a great example. In Germany it is known as one of the most reliable cars ever built whereas the perception in the US seems quite different. Extras and additional equipment in the US and maybe lack of maintenance knowledge and skills notwithstanding, this is a great example of what I would call “difference in perceived reliability”. The more I think about read about talk about and drive cars the more I find that it is more or less impossible to determine how reliable a car really is. There are just so many factors playing into that concept, press coverage and publicity management being maybe the most important of them.
My uncle used to drive only 5000s (or 100 as they were called in Germany) and he claimed they were the best cars ever engineered. Light, frugal, comfortable, never broke down. He had a 90 hp 1.8 liter Avant and I remember he would be driving it at speeds over 100 mph on French country roads with me and my cousins in the back when we were kids! It was pretty scary. And very irresponsible. And super fun.
Being originally from Europe and having read auto, motor und sport for many of the decades after moving to the US, I can tell you that there really is a difference in how a vehicle is judged in terms of reliability in the US and Europe, or at least was, as the issue is not so relevant anymore.
In the US, cars were an everyday necessity, and treated as appliances. This goes back to the Model T, which of course established that reality. And it was very tough and durable, and the repairs that were needed to that simple machine could be undertaken by many owners, or any garage/gas station, which were on so any street corners.
This relationship to the car became the expected norm in the US. of course American cars became more complex eventually, but their evolution was relatively slow, and the technology never changed that quickly. This meant that they were relatively tough and durable and still easy to fix.
Historically, many European city dwellers didn’t need cars for their daily transport. It was often a luxury item, essentially, and it was very common to garage the car all week and wash it on Saturday morning, and use it for outings on the weekends, and for vacations, and such.
And living in the city, Europeans generally did not work on their cars. So they were always very dependent on garages. European cars had to be built lighter and with small, higher-revving engines, for obvious reasons. And Europeans on average drove significantly fewer miles per year.
European manufacturers had very rigid inspection/service intervals, and European owners kept to them religiously, with little exception. Americans often didn’t. They were comfortable with knowing what their cars needed, and they didn’t generally pamper their cars or do any more than necessary.
During the great import boom in the 50s in the US, there were no experienced dealers or mechanics to service them. The typical import dealer then was a gas station/garage that took on a few import cars. The mechanics were not familiar with the significantly different issues, and parts were not readily available.This caused a huge national disappointment with import cars, and why the import share of the market crashed from 10% in 1959 to about 5% in 1960. The one big exception was VW, which was a more durable car to start with, and the company was fanatic about requiring their dealers to invest in well-stocked, large, modern dealerships, with well-trained mechanics. This was a critical part of VW’s success in the US. And it explains why VWs became so common: they were easy to work on, and so common that parts were easy and cheap, and so many knew how to fix them on their own.
The reliability of American cars began to worsen in the 70s, due to increasing complexity due to more convenience features, emission controls, and decreasing emphasis on quality and how the cars were built. labor relations were bad, and that reduced quality further.
This is what created an opening for the Japanese. Their cars were impeccably built, and very reliable. They were simply the best in that regard at the time. And combined with their efficiency and compact size, they became hugely popular except for the larger classes.
Meanwhile, VW absolutely ruined it reputation in the US with the new FWD cars, especially the Rabbit/Golf Mk1. It was not properly developed and arrived half-baked, and it took years to get it to be reasonably reliable. Even in Europe, the first years of the Golf had a bad rep. Very few of the ’75 or ’76 models survived.
From having read so many long-term (100,000 km) tests at auto, motor, und sport that European cars had many reliability problems, with the exception of Mercedes. It was very common (typical) for these cars during the test time to need several transmissions, or a new engine, numerous other mechanical components, etc. European cars were, on average, significantly less durable and reliable than Japanese and most American cars (cars like the Vega excepted) int the 70s and 80s.
And this is despite Europeans being much more diligent with service/inspection schedules. The reality is that the magazines back then (letters to the editor) were full of complaints about reliability issues.
The European manufacturers saw what was happening in the US, with the massive “Japanese inasion”, and it scared the shit out of them, They saw the very real possibility of the same thing happening in Europe, because of their poor reliability. So they made a very concerted effort to improve reliability and component quality, which often were even small little pieces like switches and electrical components, from various suppliers. They were very motivated to improve.
The Japanese did make some good headway into Europe during the 80s, and quickly got very good reputations for quality. The Toyota Starlet became the #1 most reliable rated car in Germany, ahead of the legendary W123! (ADAC statistics).
But as the Europeans improved their quality and reliability in the 90s, the difference began to narrow, and that is what kept the Japanese Invasion of Europe from happening.
In a nutshell: Europeans simply have traditionally had more tolerance for a lower standard of reliability than Americans, who depend on their cars for long daily commutes, and hate having their cars serviced or repaired.
Clearly, these standards have converged in the last two decades, and the reliability of European cars has become close to that of the Japanese, who still are considered (rightly) the best in that, generally speaking.
There’s also the human tendency to not want to admit that their beloved cars needed more repairs/service than they would like to admit. That’s just human nature, if we’re invested in something we love.
Hope this helps.
My perception, living in CT, when the Rabbit was released in the US, it was considered high-quality. Consumer Reports had a cover story saying “one of these two new cars (the Pacer being the other) is the highest rated car we’ve ever tested.” It wasn’t the Pacer. – Very similar to the recent ratings, and press coverage, with the Tesla S.
It was only later, after the Rabbits were manufactured in Pennsylvania, did the perception of quality go down, and even then, the wolfsburg convertibles were perceived as having a higher quality. All Rabbits were still perceived to have better quality than their American competition, Chevette, Escort, even Omnirizon, rightly or wrongly.
that makes total sense.
“Clearly, these standards have converged in the last two decades, and the reliability of European cars has become close to that of the Japanese, who still are considered (rightly) the best in that, generally speaking.”
I’d argue they’ve gotten better, but with the exception of Porsche and BMW they haven’t hit the mark yet. The big negative perception on the Euro brands is what happens after they roll out of warranty. Frequency and expense are both issues, and are factors that, I think, contribute to some truly horrific resale values on older high-end Euro brands. “Buy Here Pay Here” lots in SE Portland are littered with examples of this.