Audi: Celebrating Landmark Anniversary at Goodwood

Audi celebrates a landmark anniversary at the Goodwood Festival of Speed next weekend (24-26 June) with a fitting reunion. One of the world’s greatest rally drivers, Hannu Mikkola, will be reunited at the annual speed event with a car that changed the face of the sport forever.

In October 1980, the “Flying Finn” tested an Audi quattro rally car for the very first time in public - a prelude to the remarkable 25 rally championship titles won worldwide by Audi between 1981 and ’85. Mikkola will drive that very same pioneering Audi quattro, which rattled the sport to its core, at a motorsport event for the first time since the Portugal test 25 years ago.

The Audi, which has been beautifully restored by Manchester-based quattro enthusiast John Hanlon, changed the face of rallying forever. Whether on dry or wet tarmac roads, snow and ice or indeed muddy forest stages, four-wheel-drive rally cars became the norm the world over and to this day still dominate the sport.

The most successful modern day sportscar in recent times, the actual 2005 Le Mans race winning Audi R8, will be on display throughout the three-day event. Now a five-time winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours, the Audi R8 has scored an incredible 54 outright race wins from 66 starts. Furthermore, an Audi R8 has never retired from a race with mechanical problems since its race debut in March 2000. Since 2001, the R8 has benefited from FSI, direct fuel injection, offering crucial petrol saving characteristics - like the quattro permanent four-wheel-drive system, a technical innovation that is now commonplace throughout Audi’s product range.

Please check also the official website of the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Source: Fourtitude

Labels: Audi