Well surprise, surprise. Do my eyes deceive me or did Audi just take a swing at the WRC? Hidden at corner at Audi's Paris Show stand, is this scale model of the Quattro Concept in rally guise hinting at the possibility of Audi returning to the dirt/snow/tarmac stage that made the four rings what they are today. Who knows, maybe it's just there to look cool (but my fingers and toes are crossed).
If a return were to happen, and Audi built enough road-going cars to homologate the quattro for rallying (as it would have in the good old days), then everyone should get excited. Audi coming back to rallying brings about the level of excitement that Schumacher's F1 return did, although hopefully they would perform a little better after retirement than the one-time Formula 1 master.
Fans may recall a little something called group B with such epic Audi drivers as Michèle Mouton, Walter Röhrl, and Hannu Mikkola. It was a level of rallying that was reserved for the hardest of hardcore drivers, a time when brass cajones needed to be behind the wheel for the cars to even start (except Ms. Mouton, who is exempt in this case).
While Group B and its age of lawlessness are long-gone, Audi has absolutely no reason not to do this and show the world what rallying was like before Subaru and Mitsubishi came into the picture. If anyone has any juicy tidbits on what this rally-looking quattro model actually means, hit us up.
By Phil Alex
