1989 Audi V8 Quattro | Retro Review

"Prominent grille"...just wait 20 years and then you'll see a prominent grille!

Did anyone notice the misaligned hood? Thanks for those retro views! Keep them coming!

“There’s even a cellular phone..”. Oh you haven’t seen anything yet, Jon.

It’s going to be a sad sad day when MotorWeek runs out of these retro reviews. 😭

Man, this is a handsome car.

0-60 in 9.7 seconds. Today you'd be looking at Hyundai Accent taillights. Incredible.

Love these 80's Audis. $48,500 in 1989 equates to approximately $101,120 in 2019 dollars, assuming a 2.48% annual inflation rate.

These retro reviews mean everything to me

That tidy radio plays the heck out of Phil Collins/Genesis! Throwing it all away, indeed!

In australia own an Audi v8 3.6 1990 model right hand drive . It was a daily driver till I started to restore it this year. Can't wait to drive it again. My previous audi was a 1981 200t.

Thrashed around in a 200 turbo back in the day it felt like a rocket,the turbo lag made it great fun.

I miss late 80's/early 90's luxury cars. They were so much more individualistic and distinctive than today's luxury cars. Think about a Cadillac or Lincoln of that Era and how very different they were from the European competitors as a whole. Or how different a BMW was compared to a Mercedes, compared to a Jag. Today, they all have a lot of the same styling queues and are all generally trying to be a sport sedan.

This was the start of the Audi V8! IMO, one of the best V8s ever made. So SMOOTH, so linear in its delivery, sounds fantastic without being obnoxious.

I drove an Audi V8 with a manual transmission. So quiet and smooth the only way you could tell the engine was running was to look at the tach.

audi is timeless, always look good

I love this old Audi design. There weren't a lot of changes regarding the middle console and gauge style comparing this one to my A4 avant from 1997.

The open hood bothers me a lot more than it probably should. Also, did anyone else feel that the car launched in second gear in the acceleration test?

3:25. Looks like the hood isn't closed all the way or crooked.

My family owned one of these for nearly a decade before selling it to a friend who drove it for another 5 years or so before selling it. Prior to buying the V8 quattro we had looked at the LS400, Q45, BMW 535, M5 etc. but thanks to Audi's rather poor resale value at the time the V8 became a pretty logical buy. It was also all wheel drive and had a fully galvanized body which added to the appeal being that we lived in the snow/rust belt. Mind you, this was not our first Audi ownership experience as we had an '87 4000 quattro, '90 Coupe quattro 20 valve and '93 S4 as well. The V8 did have a bit of a reputation for being a potential maintenance nightmare but we found that not to be the case. Our car was treated well and maintained as Audi intended and as a result we never had any serious issues with it. A leaking rear diff seal and some climate control head wonkiness (a GM sourced part) were the only unscheduled maintenance issues that come to mind. We did go against Audi's insistence that the transmission fluid was "lifetime" and did not need to be changed. We opted to change it every 50k miles or so along with the filter and we never had a single issue with the ZF auto trans, nor did the person we sold it to. It was an absolutely amazing all-weather assault vehicle that would leave almost anything else on the road for dead in the snow. The torsen based quattro system with added torsen rear diff made the car a wall climber with proper snows. Sadly, the main thing that killed off many of these cars from still being used and driven is the abysmal parts support from Audi of America here in the States. Elsewhere in the world you can still find more parts for these via Audi Tradition but AoA doesn't seem interested in their heritage cars here in the U.S. unless it's for marketing campaigns.

That's right, Audi​'s first V8-powered car is now 30 years old!!!!

I'm really enjoying these retro reviews. It's fun to see that the review format and quality has not changed in 30+ years. It's consitanty excellent.

When I was stationed in Germany this car and the Volvo 740 were the cars Senior Officers and NCO’s could afford.

Wow, that interior is actually really nice for the time.

I miss old Audi

"Audi always stood apart" --- most inconspicuously designed car ever enters the scene

I love watching these awesome retro reviews!!!! 💖💖💖

Ahh when you could turn off your ABS lol

Rear heated seats? Back in 1989 wow

Audi needs to go back to this

My brother had one of these Audi V8s. Love them. I did 144 mph on the highway once. Smooth as silk!

Love the retro reviews! Please keep it up!!! 👍👍👍

I love old Euro luxury

My father used to buy lease returns for cash..we had a 4000s , 5000s and a 5000cs turbo and the difference between the 5000s and cs turbo was crazy good...later on a 200 turbo. The creature comforts these cars had at the timee was amazing. The cs turbo and 200 were best between 35-80 mph..curvy roads and cornering we like butter and without the Quattro option.

This 1989 Audi interior looks almost as modern as my 10-year newer 1999 Mercedes C230. Hmm..

Love German cars from 80's and 90's.. Audi being one of my favorite ^^

My uncle had this car, bought it new, but it was a manual, which was extremely rare in the US. He modded it a bit and club raced it at Road America and Mid Ohio to dial it in.. kept it until six years ago, and I still see it around now and again, despite a hard life it seems happy.

I love the older Audi designs. Oh, maybe it's because I'm older....😂

Amazing how nowadays a 2.0 liter turbo will give you 416 hp and 369 pound-feet of torque (Mercedes AMG new M-139 motor) compared to this 240 hp / 245 pound-feet of torque V8 from 1989.

I loved the Audis of the 1980s.

I have a 1992 S4 Quattro 5 cylinder turbo, it drives like dream, and that interior even better than some modern cars

240bhp from this sized engine from this time is incredibly impressive

When I was in high school my friend had a 5000 turbo deisel we were going too fast on a mt road slid on wet road and hit a tree going around 40 mpg, no seat belts on. The 5 speed stick went almost under driver's seat. The car was an accordion, not a scratch on all 4 of us! Amazing. Now I drive a new Volvo. And have put on my seatbelt from the next day on.

That V8 sounds great

I remember my mom having one of these for a little bit when it was about 8 yeas old or so, the back seat has headphone jacks and you can listen to something different than the speakers I believe.

My father has worked at a dealership that sells Audi, for 30 years and I never saw one of these growing up nor have I seen one on the road or even for sale online. Very rare car indeed

Nice to see these old reviews. I've owned both a 1991 Audi V8 and a 1991 Lexus LS 400. When everything was right, I much preferred the Audi. Unfortunately, that wasn't often! Actually, the reliability on the Audi was not that bad, but they did have issues that were expensive to resolve. The Lexus is much more of an automotive appliance with incredible build quality and 10x the reliability. I've also had a 2001 D3 S8 and 2006 LS 430. Both of those were great cars but totally different in the way they drove and how they felt from behind the wheel.

Acceleration times seem way off: 3.6 V8 automatic: around 7.2 - 7.6 seconds. 4.2 V8 manual: 6.5 seconds.

An accord from the back and a legend up front.

Rumour has it this was the engine that GM had benchmarked to beat with their Northstar project.

7:07 John: Most misses can be traced from the lack of a tilt wheel which hides both gauges and stalk-mounted controls. And it cuts driver legroom. LOL

Wanted one when I was a kid!

Wow blast from the past, they have been this show for a while now.

The V8 was light, but still far too heavy in front of the frontaxle. The inline 5- cylinder was very fast and responsive like a sprinter and made the car Audi 100/5000 fun to drive in spite of the overhanging engine in the front. The 5-er could have been transversed like the VW's and Volvo 70 but for some strange reason Audi's had to be different, maybe by because it was in the the luxury segment. Anyway they used it with steel-wires to pull away the steering wheel from the driver when the engine moved backwards during frontal collision, called Procon-Ten. Then the airbags entered the ordinary consumer-market.

The sponsor section of the begining is somehow relaxing

I remember sitting in one of these in a showroom. Very nice and all but Audi still seemed to be very far behind BMW and, especially, Mercedes at the time. Audi's march to greatness as a luxury brand really started with the '96 A4 and everything that followed.

Sweet ride. My sis had an early 5000 with that sleek aero and unheard of flush glass.

these old audi v8s sound so good

love these old Audi's!!!

Motorweek is made possible by ... I love this intro !

1080p with 60 frames per second...wow..so smooth

Beautiful car!

The back reminds me of a 1990 honda accord

The driver side hood latch is not fully closed/locked during the slalom test (you can see the gap on the hood)

These old Audis make me think of the controversial 5000 my mom’s cousin once drove. Thankfully, it didn’t accelerate on its own (though it is rare), it was a pretty classy car in its day. Genesis’ 1986 hit Throwing It All Away is playing on the radio.

Sounds like a crown vic when they floor it.

Probably has a front facing timing belt instead of the throw-the-car-away rear timing chain the later V8's had, nice car!

I had a 1990 Audi 100 back in the early 2000's bought it from this lady that had to many cars, she drove it as her around town car. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it had no tilt steering wheel but overall it was a nice car with all the bells and whistles. I keep it for 5yrs and trade it in.

It was an amazing car

Love my 5000 CS Turbo...

2 tons of fun.

The V8 Quattro was basically a revamped updated version of the Audi 5000S minus the inline 5 cylinder engine and the addition of all wheel drive full time.

Still a great looking car in my opinion. 👍

I think they must have hit something with the front end during their testing. The passenger light wiper is askew and the hood is uneven in a lot of the testing shots but it wasn't like that at the beginning of the video.

Scotty Kilmer: They ride nice no question about that. But don't get one they are endless moneypits.

Aerodynamic.

Great video could never afford these cars

Way ahead of its time.

Wonder why clients didn't like the 5-cylinder engine. It certainly sounds much better than a 4-cylinder, more like a V10. @1:47 The V8 sounds very nice, as much as I can hear its revs and its base behind Mr Davis!

Damn that V8 is a howler

Any easy mods for this particular engine?

The Audi V8 and Audi 200 20v had specially designed 'UFO' disk brakes in front because Audi wanted better stopping power but also wanted to use 15inch wheels, the caliper sit on the inside of the disk rather than the outside increasing braking surface. the result is a fine example of German over engineering. unfortunately the had a bad habit of warping in stop in go traffic. needless to say they didn't catch on and today are fairly hard to source going for around 300 to 400 for a single disk.

Performance got much better with the 4.2 introduced in 1991. The 3.6 was fun to drive with the 5-speed manual... Had a 1993 model 4.2 automatic back in 2002. I liked it a lot.

Great car i owned one of these with a manual transmission

Love how just because it is all wheel drive, in the 80’s they assumed you should driving across farms or mud-bogging. It’s now 2021, let me take my $120k Audi A8 Quattro through this nice field over here… lol

Cool

Nice 😀

Were those headlight wipers actually useful? I can’t picture them actually being useful. Seems more like something that was added to look cool or interesting lol.

when I was in the ninth grade my first job was at a Infinity / Audi / Saab dealership. I remember having to prep the customers cars after they were done with service. I remember the Audi owners telling me of all the nightmares they've had with the cars poor reliability. I work for an entire summer and remembered seeing some of the same cars 3 and for times during that summer. I remember the Audi A8 having such bad automatic transmissions that even the brand new ones coming over from Germany and Mexico would break after just a few months of being put in the car and having two of the service techs tell me that after merging with Volkswagen they could never get the computerized Electronics to last very long. All the salesman used to tell me that if you want to impress someone with a name you by one of the German cars but if you want a good car by a Lexus or one of the other Japanese luxury brands.

Nice video. Thanks. Can you post Lincoln LS please? Thanks

Love this car, way ahead of its time when launched in Europe in 1982.

On/Off switch for ABS? $48k in ‘89? 0-60 in 9.7? 18 hwy mpg? Amazing Audi survived.

Prominent grill. Lol

Funny they were still using GM seat controls and hvac controls. Nothing like that old school German leather style though 😍

If you've never seen footage of these things racing against (and frequently beating) much smaller BMWs and Benzes in the DTM, look for it on YT.

They called them "low profile tires" times sure have changed

If they’d shut the bonnet (hood) down securely they would’ve shaved some time off the 0-60...

The blue one with the mirrored rocker panels at the beginning looked much more appealing than the Bavarian shit brown test car. I wonder why John didn't say these exact words?

Good Stuff...

I must say in many ways I prefer the discreet inoffensive styling of the older Audi cars compared to the rather brash and willfully attention seeking newer models. And that interior looks actually pretty awesome for 1989! Though the performance not so much! Though that's probably in part down to the lazy 4 speed auto.

Hey MotorWeek the car in your thumbnail isn’t the V8 Quattro