(first posted 10/4/2011)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that’s true, I’m off the hook, and can just stop writing right now, because this picture tells the story of the Audi 5000/100’s huge impact and lasting influence quite perfectly, beyond its mere sales numbers. But just in case the full story behind this picture isn’t quite clear enough for you, here’s a few other shots to fill in the details:
Exactly thirty years separate these two Volkswagen AG products. Here are a few of their vital statistics: front wheel drive; engine: five cylinder in-line; length: within an inch of each other; width: within an inch of each other. Get the picture? One could substitute just about any car from the Camcordia class, and arrive at pretty much the same conclusion.
And here’s another. No words necessary.
As a frame of visual and historical comparison, here’s the Audi’s predecessor thirty years earlier, the 1953 DKW F89 ( didn’t think I needed to show you a 1953 VW Beetle). It had a three cylinder two stroke, and maybe 40 hp or so. The point is: has automotive development just slowed down in recent decades, or what? Is there a corollary to the state of our economies?
Here’s the best selling car in the US in 1983. Quite different from the Audi indeed. Personal taste aside, which was the more influential one?
The 1967 NSU Ro80 (top, just in case you recently arrived from Mars) was a sneak preview of the Audi C3, fifteen years earlier. Now go back and compare the Ro80 with the 1953 DKW. Also fifteen years separate them. Sometimes when I indulge myself in thinking or saying that the mid-late sixties were a golden time in the evolution of the automobile, I think it’s just because that was during my youth, and we all tend to look back on that time of our life with rose colored glasses. But when I look at the Ro80, I realize it really was the case. Why is the 1967 Impala there with it? Good question, other than it was the best selling car in 1967. And to offer some visual contrast.
Here’s another good story, and this one might be even more than a thousand words long. Let’s just say that the Taurus appeared exactly three years after the Audi. Which is the typical amount of time it takes to design a car from beginning to production. I just wish it had been a sedan there, and not the Avant. Close enough.
And what does this picture tell us? Perhaps the passion with which Americans embraced the Audi 5000. Or maybe the owner is just hoping that one of them will actually run. The 5000 was not a paragon of reliability.
It wasn’t just in its exterior styling that the Audi set the template for the future.
The Audi C3 arrived with a drag coefficient of 0.30, which set the automotive world on its ear. One of ways it did that was the very trick flush window mounting. I happened to be in Germany on a business trip (to visit Maharishi; don’t ask) in the late fall of 1982, and saw my first Audi C3 there. I spent several minutes gazing at their clever solution for mounting the side glass flush. Why hadn’t anybody thought of that before?
Let’s just say that Ferdinand Piech was the head of Audi back then, or at least the head of their engineering (the very model of a modern major engineer). That explains a thing or two, and why he’s holding an award of some sort for his latest baby. Before I forget, the C3 was awarded the European Car Of The Year in 1983.
Which is determined quite differently than Motor Trend’s version. And in 1990, the European Audi 100 was one of the first cars to have a modern direct injected diesel engine, the first TDI. That was a major milestone too. In one noisy leap, Audi jumped right over Mercedes’ long diesel leadership. (update: we all know how that story ends, this time VW/Audi’s own doing).
The C3 Audi was available with a raft of VW family engines in Europe, including four cylinders. For the US, the 827-family engine sprouted an additional cylinder, but that already appeared in the previous generation 5000, in 1976. It was the first gasoline five cylinder engine, if we’re not counting airplane radials. Or my ’68 Dodge van with an oil-fouled plug.
I have yet to find a C2 Audi, but I live in hope (update: here’s a Cohort capsule of one). Used to be so many of them in LA. If I remember correctly, the C3 was really an evolution of the C2, which in many ways perhaps deserves more recognition for its influence. The turbo version was a highly admired car in its day.
Never mind finding a C1 Audi 100. They were quite popular here once upon a time too, but not exactly famous for their durability either. The whole story of how it came to be is fascinating…another day (update: here’s our CC on one posted at the Cohort).
But it was the C3 Audi 5000 that suddenly became America’s new sweetheart. And 5000s were to be seen everywhere in fashion-conscious American suburbs. By 1985, Audi sales in the US were 74k; pretty impressive. And then…
Well, I can’t find a suitable picture, so I’ll have to tell the story, very briefly. Suddenly, a number of those newly-enamored Audi 5000 owners who had traded in their Cutlass Supreme Coupes started mowing down their kids or granny in the driveway. Better yet, you can read my whole take on that here. Sometimes a link is worth a thousand words, or at least eight hundred.
Anyway, that debacle almost wiped out Audi in the USA. Sales fell to 12k in 1991, and it wasn’t until 2000 that Audi got back to the 74k sales they had in 1985. Ouch!
Speaking of 800 words, I’ve just exceeded them already. The Audi 5000, especially in its turbo version (200 in Europe) was a superb driver’s car too. Its steering was surprisingly good for a front wheel drive car.That used to not be something to take for granted, back then. Or now, thanks to electric steering.
The Avant version didn’t sell well here, but that doesn’t diminish its very profound influence too. The Audi “wagon” really redefined the modern European wagon, from the plumber’s vehicle to a chic lifestyle-mobile, where maximum capacity wasn’t the ultimate goal. To fully appreciat its lasting impact, consider that the overwhelming percentage of cars like the Passat and Audi A4 sold at retail in countries like Germany are the wagon version. The Avant turned the old order upside down, in Europe.
And the 5000 sedan had pretty much the same effect here, except that its target was different. The 5000 may not have directly or solely caused the demise of Cadillac and other American premium makes, because of the SUA debacle, but others quickly stepped into its role. And the rest is history.
No more pictures needed. Or words.
I once owned the best selling car in the US for 1983 (Olds Cutlass Supreme Coupe) for 13 years just like above except mine was green.
Nothing fancy by Audi standards, but parts were dirt cheap, design was a simple as a lead pencil and just as reliable, and any mechanic worth his weight in salt could repair it for a reasonable fee.
When you buy your first car on your own, sometimes you want the sure thing. At that time, Audi wasn’t the sure thing.
These were great Audis. That does not mean they are great Cutlasses or mid size Fords or Cadillacs. This was from an earlier time when quality suddenly meant benchmarking the competition. It is quite understandable that a bunch of engineers sitting around in 1983 will think the Audi is the more interesting thing going. At the same time, a new design had to be compatible for the world market and was costing so much to bring to market that the risks became sky high.
Thus this Audi lead to a terrible downturn in the quality of auto engineering. Really at no fault of Audi. If it was my power to do so, I would label it a deadly sin for all the copycat automakers around the world. Do you own work, find new roads.
Deadly sin? This isn’t an American car! Everything was perfect.
Careful John T.!
These Audis were great lookers. That’s different from being great looking automobiles. An automobile needs to be mobile. By itself (auto). These Audis were such reliability nightmares that they really should have been called “maybemobiles.” When they did run properly, they were no paragons of performance, either. For something that looked like it should be quick, this Audi was a painful letdown.
My feeling is that a half-baked product like this would have failed anyway; either make it a better car or exit the market. What Ed Bradley and the dishonest liars at CBS did was to make impossible a followup, with a car that was actually COMPETENT.
It didn’t help that the target audience for the Audi 5000 was the image-conscious 1980s suburbanite to whom the appearance of upward mobility was what counted. Being seen in an Audi after all that splashy, unjustified bad publicity could result in ostracism at the country club and the mall. “WHYDONTCHAGETA (Mercedes, BMW, whatever the latest fashion of the upturned-nose types was that month)?”
There are very few cars that scare me in the used car business.
This is most definitely one of them.
I remember working as an auctioneer at a place that I called, “The Red Light District” back in 2000. I sold one of these for $40 at an inop sale where cars were regularly held in a back lot. One dealer was notorious for holding every vehicle he could buy and then selling them all when the price of steel peaked. In the meantime, he would try to do whatever he could to sell the parts off of what was there already.
Well, lo and behold, the guy who bought the Audi was not that dealer. We helped him jump the battery and the Audi briefly roared back to life. It was beautiful for about two minutes.
Then a small army of noxious smells entered into the equation. To this day I don’t know exactly what oily residues created a smell that orginated from the 7th Circle of Dante’s Inferno. But it was a horrific olfactory combination of mineral oil, smoking engine innards, and a heater core that was spewing a small river of old coolant into the passenger floor and vents.
In a few months, the Audi followed a long line of LeBaron convertibles, Ford Tempos, and Buick Skyhawks straight to the jaws of the crusher. I’m sure they were all recycled into something far more useful to humanity; such as Chinese washing machines.
That ’53 DKW was actually designed in the late ’30s and would’ve been their car for the ’40s, except for the war. I have a ’57 DKW F93 Sonderklasse 2-door in my driveway that looks very similar, except mine has a wrap-around back window almost like the 1950 Studebaker coupe. They pioneered mass-production front-wheel-drive with the 1931 DKW F-1, but they kept on with two stroke engines far too long.
Daimler Benz bought Auto-Union/DKW in 1958 and attempted to market them in the US, but in 1960 the new American compacts pulled the rug out from under the weaker imports. The final coffin-nail for DKW was the oil-injection system introduced in the early ’60s so buyers wouldn’t have to remember to dump a can of 2-stroke oil in the gas tank with each fill-up. Unfortunately, the oil-injection was unreliable at sub-freezing temperatures, and the company wound up buying engines instead of selling cars.
So Daimler Benz designed a new 4-stroke OHV slant 4 for the final DKW – the ‘mid-size’ F102, just before selling Auto-Union to Volkswagen in 1965, which brought that car out as the F103 – the first postwar Audi. We got those here from 1970 – 72 as the Super 90 sedans and wagons. Introduced in 1968 with US sales beginning in 1970 their first big seller here. The F104 Audi 100, was powered by a similar Super-90 FWD setup, in a body that, not accidentally, looked very similar to the smaller Mercedes of that time.
As for my own Audi experience, I drove a couple Super-90 wagons between 1977 and 1992. Loved the ride and handling and cargo-room. The reliability? Not so much! Along with a long list of ‘normal’ repairs, I had to rebuild an engine and transaxle, then replace the steering-rack and rear torsion-bar. When I couldn’t find aftermarket, dealer parts were usually very pricey.
To be fair, my Audis were very used, with an unknown history, and at least had virtually no electrical gadgets or electronics to worry about. Plus, for a FWD, they were relatively easy to work on. What finished them was when the parts supplies finally dried up in the early ’90s.
Today, if I had some of Jay Leno’s garage-space and money, I wouldn’t mind having a mint-condition early 100LS in my collection.
But as nice as the recent Audis are, I don’t want one.
Happy Motoring, Mark
I never realized that the old Taurus looks like a fat Audi from the side. Hmm…But man, talk about a spartan interior-yuck. The Taurus’s interior isn’t what I’d call luxurious either but it’s much more inviting.
One of my uncles had an Audi 5000 and he’ll probably cuss Audi until his dying day.
Yeah, I’d take the ’83 Cutlass hands down.
Dom, did you ever check out the Mercury Sable’s interior? Much more “upscale” than a Taurus.
It is, kind of. I had a first generation Taurus and aside from some chintzy preskool plastic knobs and such, I liked it.
My point was that at least the Taurus (not to mention the Sable or even Continetal) interior looked like somewhere I would actually not mind spending time-even were they just family sedans and not luxury cars. That Audi interior portrayed (even when new) looks Spartan to the point of ugliness. Audi does a much much better job with its interiors these days, not to mention the whole cars. I wouldn’t kick an A6 or A8 out of my garage.
If you actually sat in that interior for a little while, you might reconsider. The seats were extremely comfortable–Germans have been good at that for quite some time–and the materials all felt very high quality. I particularly remember being impressed with the thickness of the carpet. The shape of the dash was common for the time, not particularly beautiful, but functional. Also take into account that the picture posted in the article shows an interior that has been made tired and drab by both the passage of time and the monochrome black color. Ours had tan seats and door panel tops, and it livened up the look considerably.
I love Paul’s ‘deep history’ articles. They jog the brain into new and interesting pathways. So while we’re at it, were Gilbert & Sullivan early rappers??
My Mother LOVED her Audi 5000….when it wasn’t broken.
When it did die; she made my Father’s life miserable. (Feminine Logic?)
When it was stolen from a mall’s parking lot; Mom & Dad bought a new Mercury Sable.
Similar styling, but MUCH MUCH MORE reliable.
Good article, Paul: the photo juxtapositions are telling and I like the rhythm of the piece. The final duo of photos makes a cracking punchline.
I quite like the Cadillac even it’s not what I’d suggest my students would do. The Audi people were educated (I believe) at the Ulm Design School which had intensely intellectual course material. These students were asked to consider radii, topology and Gestalt visual theory. The Cadillac designers followed another agenda which suited the US as much as Audi’s vision suited Europe.
My friend had a white sedan I don’t think it was the Quattro or turbo. It was automatic and the body was flawless except for a missing trim on the back bumper that Audi wanted some ridiculous sum to fix, so she ignored it. This was after the unintended acceleration debacle so she picked it up for $500. I never heard any problems with reliability mechanically speaking but a couple of window switches and power locks didn’t work. I lost touch with her shortly after so I never heard how it worked out.
The price of repairs and the lack of manual transmissions in the ones I saw for sale made them a no go for me. I liked the Quattro coupes that came out around the same time but they were way out of my meager budget so I settled on a first gen GTI instead. I used to get a kick out of the odd part that had the Audi logo on it and some of the cross catalog parts that would fit vw’s or vs versa…
Thanks for the article! I was 14 in 1984 when one of the families in my carpool got a new 5000……wow. That was like arriving at school in the Space Shuttle. It was so smooth and silent. As an example of the style and taste changes it wrought, I think they traded an LTD for it. It made my mom’s 240D seem ancient in looks and feel. I bought a used 1996 A6 around 2000. It was beautiful to look at inside and out, but not quite as enjoyable as I thought it would be as an adult. It didn’t seem as smooth or silent as I remembered the 5000 being. And after having to be towed twice, and then the sunroof failing, and then the alarm going off for no reason about every week, and then the transmission making weird noises, I decided to exit Audi ownership and haven’t been back. My Land Rover LR4 has been MUCH less trouble after 5 years and 90,000 miles, so that’s really saying something.
My father sold Fords in the 80’s while I was in high school. For many reasons because of this, I’ve always been interested in car design so I paid close attention to all the new and upcoming models. I remember being particularly excited about the new 86 Taurus cause it looked a lot like the Audi 5000. Finally after months of anticipation my dad told me they got their first Taurus and it was locked up in the back lot. I hounded him all afternoon until he finally took me to see it. It was behind the fence and partially covered in plastic but there it was and yes it did look a lot like the 5000.
The 5000 influenced so many cars. Another one I noticed is the back of the 86-89 Accord looks like it too… just a different color block configuration.
My main point of fondness with the C3 is that effortless high speed cruising north of 90 mph. Although 110 is all, that seemingly tender little 1.8 can manage, it will stay right there all day and won’t struggle too much getting there.
Everything about the car is airy, light, lithe and nimble, and despite the ageing plastics one by one unleashing more rattles, there is still a feeling of “just right” amount of rigidity and soundness, as opposed to the somewhat overdone vaultness and isolation of a mercedes w124, I also spent plenty of wheel time in.
Saddling that masterpiece with heavy, power consuming and failure-prone auxiliaries is just plain wrong, and putting some elbow grease into parking maneuvers and bearing the heat on those days of the year are the only major sacrifices, since serving the right gear at the right moment and starting up and single-handedly keeping the engine in perfect idle on warm-up at any outside temperature is a pleasure, a vinyl buff or a mechanical watch connoisseur could easily relate to.
I should really take the time to do a COAL..
I don’t know what you guys across the pond do to European cars, cars that over here are paragons of reliability, once they get sent stateside, turn into lemons!
Audi C3 with the 5 cylinder had a good reputation as a multi- 100k mile car. Mine had 250k when I sold it on, although I will concede the automatic wasn’t a durable transmission. But then we all drive stick here.
I can remember some parts being a little expensive, but not much tended to wear out until it had some serious miles behind it. The only fault mine had with the electrics was the little graphic display/checklight on the dash which would show random warning signals whenever it felt like it.
But for a 1982 car, the Audi was absolutely mind blowing. It rendered the competition here obsolete virtually overnight. and we didn’t have a single case of “unintended acceleration” in Europe.
Wow someone who spoke up I live in Rhode island I have a 1997 Audi 5000 tubo Quattro 128k pearl white on black 5speed factory fuchs excellent inside few scratches outside.been in garage 10 years daily driven when parked never taken apart .l have 3 4 draw file cabinets of spare parts just about everything but panals and lights so I think I’m ready to get it back too life .how do you think I should approach fuel system cleaning and preparing to start thanks.
I always have been fascinated by the 5000 Line of cars. I am old enough to remember when they were current models and they always stood out to me as a great design, Both the Sedan and the Wagon. Upon looking at these pictures, however, I realize how much the luggage rack on the wagon looks like an afterthought though. Almost too tall and too chrome-y for the design. Almost like it belongs on a 1960’s Volvo Wagon. The Taurus and Sable wagons wore their luggage racks much better and I think those racks were much better integrated into the overall design. The 5000 Wagon looks amazing without the roof rack though.
Everytime I see one of these Audis, the first thing I always think of is the unintended accel thing. Always.
It looked leading edge in 1984. But I do think the Taurus exterior came across less cold/sterile in conveying the aero jellybean theme. As did the Ro80 bridge the gap better in terms of being cutting edge style and aerodynamics. While retaining character and an amiable, and artistic quality, in its exterior design.
Blaming the collapse in Audi sales in the U.S. on the unintended-acceleration brouhaha is like blaming the collapse of Corvair sales on Ralph Nader. Sure, it was a major contributor, but a bad rep due to poor reliability has to take its share blame too. And the Taurus was even more modern looking, much less expensive, and just as good (Rich Ceppos of C/D: “Is this Ford really a breakthrough, a car with European breeding, German-luxury-car moves, a strong dose of value, and all the goodness that can be packed into a cut-rate Audi 5000? The answer is yes.”). Volkswagen-brand sales in America also dipped badly around this time, and they weren’t accused of unintended acceleration so it had to be for other causes.
Maybe it’s just a regional thing, but I prefer the style of the cutlass. Those cushy seats and wood is something I miss in cars these days.
OK, this may be a duh comment to many, and I kind of see referrences in some of the recent comments, but isn’t the second car, in what, the 2nd or 3rd photo with 2 bronzit car, a Ford Taurus? Actually I thought they were even closer to the Audi in appearance than the pic indicates.
Reliability. I worded with a guy that had, had a 5000. One time I made the mistake of saying something about reliability and that was it, he went off. He finished with something about “after all the window switches stopped working it was raining one day. Smoke started coming up from the assembly. I took it straight to the junkyard…”
Or something like that. He didn’t get it new, but I think newish. Said it was great at first, but as time went on… Yes I know, 12 volts shouldn’t smoke with water damage, but it was his story, I wasn’t there and it was a great story.
The smoke may have had nothing to do with the rain/water. I’ve been riding down the road in a buddy’s 80s GTi and smoke starts pouring from under the dash, no water involved.
3 weeks later, the car finally burned itself. Luckily nobody was hurt, but it only had liability insurance, so he was SOL on that one. Probably should’ve done what your friend did when the smoke incident occured, and saved himself the trouble.
Gotta say, as a student/lover of auto design, I’ve always had a soft spot for Audi sedans. The proportions were just right, the overall looks were not too plain, while not being too flashy. Sorta like a hot upper middle class girl. I must also say, their high maintenance needs are similar, too. Haha. Good thing that while I lusted after the girl and the car, I never could afford either one.
So the Taurus went from a traced drawing of an Audi to the assembly line in 3 years or less in the mid 1980s, wow! Ford’s engineers were more advanced than I thought. That would be a major accomplishment, even today!
And Ford had no previous models with similar aero styling, like the ’83 Thunderbird or ’84 Tempo introduced in mid-83? It was all an Audi stuffed into one of those gigantic 1980s Xerox machines. Good to know.