twenty S1

Audi Sport Quattro S1

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Over the years, there has been some confusion regarding the name of the motorsport cars this homepage serves.
To clear things up, the well known motorjournalist and contributor, John Davenport has given a little writeup on the
matter of the use of the S1 and E2/Evo 2 description.

Audi Sport Quattro evolutions

If one looks at the first page of the Audi Sport Quattro B264 homologation form,
one can see that the car model is given as “SPORT QUATTRO S1”. This designation
is maintained throughout the form and appears on both first pages of the two
evolutions. The reason for this is that the S1 was the first evolution of the
Sport Quattro, the 20 motorsport cars, of which were homologated at exactly the
same time as the 200 standard Sport Quattros. That is to say on May 1st,1984.
The street car was never rallied, but the S1 made its debut on the Tour de Corse
on May 3rd, 1984 with Walter Röhrl at the wheel, and it was the also the S1 with
which he lost out to Ari Vatanen on the 1985 Monte. And it was an S1 with which
Stig Blomqvist won the Ivory Coast Rally in 1984.

The E2 - so called because FISA insisted that from the end of 1984 all producers of
Group B cars should use the prefix "E" before the number denoting the particular
evolution - was a evolution of the standard 200-off Sport Quattro and thus used the
same homologation number as that car (and the same homologation number as the
S1) namely, B264.

The E2 was homologated on July 1st, 1985, made its rally debut on the
non-championship Olympus Rally in the USA on July 4th/7th, and then its WRC debut in
Argentina on July 30th - with a very reluctant Stig Blomqvist who had wanted to drive
an A2. Röhrl was the only driver to win a WRC round with the E2, and that was at
San Remo in 1985.

If you read any of the books, magazines, articles from 1984/86 dealing with these
cars, you will see that the first evolution is given the title of “Sport Quattro S1” and
the second evolution is given the title “Sport Quattro E2”. Have a look at the two
volumes of “World Rallying 8 & 9” by Martin Holmes that cover the years 1985 and
1986. He consistently refers to the second evolution as the “E2”. This is in line with
the way Audi Sport referred to them in their press releases and the way that that
they were referred to internally at FISA. I know that because in those years I sat on
the FISA Homologation Commission representing the manufacturers.

The distinction is important technically because each evolution is a separate entity.
The second evolution is derived from the base model and not from the previous
evolution. Indeed, the Homologation regulations and Appendix J specifically forbade
what we call in English “mix and match”, i.e. use something from the first evolution
on the second evolution – or vice versa. To prepare a car under the regulations, you
had to take the base homologation and then apply ALL the particular items from the
evolution that you were preparing WITHOUT borrowing any from another evolution.
Hence the need to distinguish between evolutions by a type number - that was
insisted on by FISA - from the beginning of 1985. If this had been introduced earlier,
the first evolution of the Sport Quattro should have been called a “Sport Quattro E1”.
Instead, the “S1” title was used. But when the second evolution came, this was
called “Sport Quattro E2”. Exactly the same thing applied to the second evolutions of
the Lancia 037 Rallye and the Peugeot 205 T16 which, if you look in
“World of Rallying8 & 9” you will see identified as “037 Rallye E2” and “205 T16 E2”.

In a conversation with Jurgen Bertl a few years ago, he told me that the mistake in
the Sport Quattro’s second evolution title was perhaps initiated by the publication of
a book by another old friend, Herbert Volker, where there was a two-page exploded
drawing of the E2 and the caption writer wrongly labelled it as a “Sport Quattro S1”.

- John Davenport, Monday, October 26 2009

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