Editor’s Note: If you’re just picking up this story here, this is Part 5 in a longer series of stories on this subject. Find a master link to the full Mittelmotor Saga story HERE.
The common lore on the Audi Group S development can be broken down to three basic elements. 1) The project was a secret, 2) spy photos were taken and leaked in the press, 3) Ferdinand Piëch was so angry that he shut down the project and had all the cars destroyed. And while these elements are for the most part true, what gets lost is the perspective.
Read most any account of this secretive time in Audi’s history and it’s almost always accompanied by grainy photos shot at a service plaza alongside an Audi Sport quattro S1 E2. It is these photos that are most often attributed to the project’s exposure and ultimate undoing, but that’s not the real story. And to tell this story, one needs to consider the tale of Jiří Jermakov. Fortunately, he’s already shared his experience and it’s history we can reshare here.
For Jiří, the story begins in 1985. At that time, he was an employee at the JZD Slušovice… the very same Czechoslovakian agricultural cooperative highlighted in Part 4 of the Mittelmotor Series just last week. Jermakov’s vocation was hydraulics, repairing pumps for the Slušovice. In his spare time, he was also an amateur photographer and fan of rally, naturally drawn then to photographing motorsports like local Czech Barum rally held in nearby Zlín since 1971.
It’s not hard to do the math here. Local mechanic and budding motorsports photographer in otherwise sleepy communist hamlet takes notice when major World Rally Championship team sets up shop outside of town, and soon the unmistakable bellowing of 5-cylinder rally cars emanates from nearby hills.
What would you do if you were Jiří?
Audi Arrives in Dešná
Like the Barum rally, Dešná already had rallying activities going on. The JZD Slušovice even had its own established Agroteam rally operation. So, while locals were used to Czech rally series activities in their backyard, it was quickly becoming apparent that changes were afoot. By mid-way through the 1985 rally season, the JZD Slušovice rally effort began contesting domestic Czech rallies in an Audi quattro wearing the Agroteam livery and driven by locals Leo Pavlík and Karel Jirátko.
Beyond the arrival of that rally quattro, people had begun noticing that woods were being cleared on a hill between Dešná and Chrastěšov. Weeks later, friends mentioned that they’d seen an Audi driving up there. Jiří was naturally curious and decided to head up into the hills and investigate for himself.
When he did make it to the site of the Dešná polygon for the first time, Jiří was impressed with what he found – a very interesting track indeed. He has described it in detail for a story on autosport.cz.
“The dominant feature was the horizon with a fast approach and a descending landing point, continuing with a series of technical bends to the lowest point of the track in the right bend at the gate above the village of Dešná. From that here, there was an exit with two right bends over the top of the hill where, on the opposite, there is a gentler slope followed by a series of technical bends and short straights with alternating concrete and gravel surfaces. After a long bend to the left, there was a long straight section approximately 80 meters long that brought the car back to the “return edge”. The total length of the circuit was about 1.5 km and 80-90 percent was unpaved. The area was complemented by asphalt service roads, a service station with a surface paved with panels and several caravans for technical and social facilities. One of these formed a kind of VIP grandstand, with a view of the horizon and the lower part of the track,” wrote Jiří Jermakov in his recount.
On September 16th of that year, Jiří set out to return to the polygon. In the waning daylight of early evening, he managed to catch a white Sport quattro being driven by Audi Sport test driver Walter Mayer. He also watched as Czech driver Leo Pavlík took a turn running the car around the circuit. Impressed at what he’d seen so far, Jermakov was absolutely thrilled when Mayer returned in a Sport quattro S1 E2, noting some very specific details – additional rally lights, a starting number on the side, the Blomqvist / Cederberg names on the door – all confirming it as the same car Blomqvist had used to run the Rally 1000 Lakes.
As a rally fan, Jiří knew how special seeing one of these new winged cars was. So far, the S1 E2 had only made public appearances in Argentina and Finland. Very few people had actually seen these cars running.
At Rally 1000 Lakes in Finland, Audi Sport had expected Lancia to show up with their mid-engined Delta S4, but a delay in homologation meant Ingolstadt’s only real mid-engine competition came from Peugeot 205 T16 E2.
When this S1 E2 had run in Finland, the car with registration plate IN NY 18 had been a brand-new chassis and represented Audi’s fastest car to date. Nevertheless, the E2 wasn’t a match for the Peugeot, the resulting French victory locking down the Driver’s Title and blocking Audi from any chance at the Manufacturer’s Title.
Three and a half weeks after the loss, IN NY 18 turned up in Czechoslovakia and was rounding the abusive polygon, put through its paces by Audi Sport’s chief test driver.
Maybe it was the evening light, or perhaps the excitement of witnessing the emergence of the S1 E2, but when Jiří developed the film, he shot that first day, he was massively disappointed to see that none of it was usable. As a result, he planned a prompt return to the polygon.
Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t working for Jermakov. Several days of rain kept Jiří from returning, while the rain also meant an interruption in testing for Audi Sport. However, when the first day of sunny weather returned, Jiří was on a mission to go back.
That fortuitous day came on September 20th. As he made his way there that morning and passed the last houses on the outskirts of the village of Dešná, Jiří could hear the distinctive sound of a quattro rally car echoing down the road towards him. Up ahead, he could see dust in the air. Camera in hand, he began to jog toward the circuit.
As he ran towards the action, Jiří spied not only a car driving his direction but also a security guard headed his way. “As the car passed, [the security guard] lunged at me, punched me in the face and at the same time snatched my camera away, making it impossible for me to take a picture. I had not expected such a violent reaction and wanted to avoid another conflict.”
The punch had stunned Jiří, but not enough to scare him away. Instead, he circled around the track to its upper perimeter. After watching from this vantage point for a while, he spotted another car and took a picture. Certain that the driver had seen him and thus known he was being photographed, Jermakov figured he could now photograph without any problem.
The car performed three more laps, then parked in the service area. Over the next 30 to 45 minutes, there was no further activity. Thinking the session was probably over, Jiří headed back down toward Dešná on his way home. Halfway to the village though, he heard the unmistakable sound of the rally car’s race-tuned turbocharged 5-cylinder yet again. This time though, it was coming from a different direction than the parked S1 E2.
SIDENOTE: One of the rumors dug up about this time suggests the RS 001 may have first been spotted when the team had taken the car on a run to the local bakery. This is an uncorroborated account, but one has to wonder if this part of the legend doesn’t stem from this moment.
As Jiří returned down the road, an Audi 100 sedan approached down the road from the lower gate. Though the 100 was just a common road car, what followed it was something most peculiar and the source of that engine sound.
The car in question was small and had very short overhangs. Jiří was convinced it must have been a mid-engine car. Perhaps he’d already seen Michael Strm’s drawing from Auto Motor und Sport’s May 1985 issue. No doubt the rally world was abuzz with whispers about a mid-engine Audi, but no further evidence beyond an artist’s drawing accompanying a rumor in a car magazine had been seen.
Yet here it very well have been. The car was all white. The only markings on its bodywork were JZD SLUŠOVICE stickers on the sides. It had no rings on the grille to explicitly identify it was an Audi, but it did share the same Speedline wheels as the quattros. Then, Jiří spied the same embossed “quattro” logo on the rear window from the rally cars.
Jiří knew enough of the situation to know that this was likely a very big deal. The Audi company had been denying Ingolstadt had any sort of answer prepared to take on the Peugeot 205 T16 or Lancia Delta S4… yet in the same week he’d spotted the winged monster Sport quattro S1 E2 Blomqvist had used at Rally 1000 Lakes, here he was just a few meters away from Audi’s most secret of weapons.
The mittelmotor car, the car that later came to be known as RS 001, was driven to the service area and parked by an S1 E2. A few mechanics worked on the S1, but otherwise there was no activity. Jiří describes the situation, “I couldn’t miss the pictures of this car! Without anyone being interested in my presence, I took a picture of the prototype and returned to the track. However, when the car didn’t return to the circuit after a half an hour, I set off on my return journey.”
Later that day, Jiří says he took four photos with him to show his friend who worked at the Barum Rally headquarters. According to Jermakov’s account, his friend sent the photos without his knowledge to the editorial office of Svět motorů, noting the author simply as “an anonymous Barumka fan”.
From there, Jiří says in his account that the “Svět motorů editor Dalibor Janek contacted representatives of the Slušovice Agricultural Cooperative and the Audi company in Straubing during the Dreistädte rally and asked them for a certain amount of money for not publishing the photos.”
No doubt that went over swimmingly. There was just so much riding on the secret development of the mittelmotor Audi. It’s almost certain the hunt was on for the “anonymous Barumka fan”.
Weeks later, on November 6, Walter Röhrl and Christian Geistdorfer visited Slušovice. The visit included a press conference in Prague where the three-time World Champion and his co-driver were celebrated guests, activities chronicled in the local newspaper. Also present in the newspaper photo is Leo Pavlík of the local Slušovice rally team (and author quoted in the previous installment) plus VIPs from the JZD Slušovicecooperative management.
According to Jiří’s recount, the Audi team members were shown the work of the JZD organization and inspected the test track in Dešná. When they departed, they traveled directly to the Semperit Rally where they’d compete in the new Audi Sport quattro S1.
It goes without saying, the fact that the JZD Slušovice and Audi were putting stories in the local newspaper is enough evidence needed to conclude that Ingolstadt’s presence in the region wasn’t at the same level of secrecy.
Even still, the next day November 7, things got dicey for Jermakov. It seems the management of the JZD had identified Jiří as the anonymous fan with the camera. As he recounted for the Autosport.cz story, “At 7:00 AM I was taken to the administrative building of the Slušovice Agricultural Cooperative, where I was taken to the office of P. Čmolík, in the presence of doc. Fr. Čuba and JUDr. J. Kaláč is being interrogated about the photos from the test track. After comparing them with my other photos, I am proven to be the author of the photos of the Audi prototype, but without intention to harm the interests of the Slušovice Agricultural Cooperative. After handing in all the negatives from the track and recording my statement, I was dismissed at approximately 3:00 PM. The management of the Slušovice Agricultural Cooperative forced me to terminate my employment and terminate my membership in the cooperative on December 31, 1985 at my own request. I no longer published the photos and I never received any royalties for them.”
Fascinatingly, the infamous shots that exposed the RS 001 to the motoring world weren’t the ones captured by Jiří Jermakov at the polygon. While his photographs circulate the internet widely today, they weren’t published back in 1985.
Jiří had one other story to tell in relation to the photos, and it speaks to how gossip and the game of telephone are universal elements of the human condition. That following spring of 1986, Jermakov overheard a conversation between two young men chatting in the city center of Zlín. One man recounted the details he’d heard of the incident involving someone photographing Audi’s secret prototype. The storyteller shared that it was a gas station attendant from the Slušovice who took the photos, apparently climbing into a tree and waiting for hours. That gas station attendant was believed to have sold the photos to one of Audi’s competitors and was now in doing quite well for himself.
Of course, the story had morphed as they often do. One wonders how much of that legend had been used as cover though, a more elaborate and believable explanation for how a conniving photographer could could in and photograph the cars without being caught. Contrarily, Jiří’s story sounds much more mundane. There’s something to be said for persistence and confidently walking in like you belong.
As for the photos that exposed the RS 001 to the world and spelled its untimely destruction, not to mention the demise of the entire Audi rally program, word is that it was an insider tip-off for money that inevitably did cause this to happen. But, that’s a story for Part 6.
NEXT UP PART 6: RÖHRL TESTS RS 001 + FAMILY BETRAYAL
SOURCES BOOKS AND ARTICLES USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS STORY