ooooIYKYK, ISSUE #0011
This week, I published the latest and sixth installment of the Mittelmotor Saga, an ongoing series centered on a secret 1980s project where, against the wishes the Volkswagen Board of Directors wishes, a young Ferdinand Piëch and his small team of upstarts fought to keep Audi in rally despite diverging pressures by competitors to spend more in order to keep pace, and by corporate accountants desiring they spend less. The situation was so secret back then that even today it suffers from so many different versions of the mittelmotor project story.
To better recount what actually happened, I’ve researched heavily, digging especially into German texts that often have access to first-hand information gleaned from those period players who were actually involved. I’ve also done some interviews of my own, giving me further insight. It’s been fascinating, and also surprising at times. Take for example this week, when a skeptic responded to the post I’d made sharing the story on social media.
The criticism itself was focused at the RS 002, the only car that remains today. I’ll be digging into the story of that survivor more deeply in the next installment – the series having led us to this point. The skeptic above claims the car is a fake, built after-the-fact in order to do… I’m not sure what… generate headlines?… but a fake nonetheless according to him.
I think I know what the car is, and I am certain it is authentic and real. However… I doubt most anyone outside those who built it truly know. The most basic understanding is that it was built around 1985 when the other RS 001 mule was testing. This particular car was saved from destruction for reasons I’ll dig into in the series, resurfacing at Audi’s headquarters museum in the 1990s. My own first photos of the car are shot in 2001 when I encountered it at the Audi museum mobile not long after that facility opened its doors.
One would assume that means the critic thinks it was built in the 1990s to generate headlines. And while it’s true Audi built some mid-engine cars in the 1990s specifically to generate headlines (namely the Audi Avus concept and Audi quattro Spyder concept that the Mittelmotor Saga series will also eventually cover), it’s hard to imagine a 1990s era historical department that would eventually become Audi Tradition deciding to create their own mid-engine concept at this time.
Even the idea raises all sorts of questions. Where would the budget have come from? Why would they create a version the somewhat odd and egg-like RS 002 rather than the more familiar and often more loved-by-enthusiasts RS 001 with its familiar quattro-like shape and box flare fenders? Why would they do any of that at a time when all of it looked like a past era that its creator, Ferdinand Piëch, seemed keen to move on from by the 1990s? The Avus and the quattro Spyder concepts were designed by wholly different teams with very different missions… and none of it, stylistically at least, tread anywhere near the orphaned Group S program cars like the long-since-destroyed RS 001 or the egg-like RS 002. None of this adds up for motivations to create a replica, but my proof is based on an interpretation of facts as is the RS 002 cynic, so maybe it’s worth taking a different position.
I honestly don’t care if it is real, i.e. a replica. Even if what he says is true… that it was built to garner headlines. It’s still spectacular.
It wouldn’t be the first time Audi Tradition built a replica of a car lost to history. Well, iI suppose it would have been the first time, though the point here is that they’ve got a track record of doing so… a track record where they’re transparently clear about what they did.
Remember Audi’s pre-war Silver Arrows? Designed by Ferdinand Porsche himself, these revolutionary racecars were the first to use mid-engine design (supercharged V16s no less) in Grand Prix racing that would eventually become Formula 1. Following World War 2, the Auto Union (now Audi) racers of that era were lost behind the iron curtain, spirited back to Russia once they’d been discovered hidden in a mine. While a few Auto Unions have surfaced in the last 25 years, Audi had no real demonstrators of this incredible era in the late 90s when they sought to draw a line to this pre-war luxury and performance pedigree with the Avus concept. So, they used old plans and precious few component examples to recreate authentic duplicates. Working with British specialists Crosthwaite and Gardiner, most of these cars made their debut at the 1999 Monterey Car Week.
Last summer, Audi Tradition again pulled off an incredible feat by returning to Crosthwaite in order to build the amazing Type 59. You see, Dr. Porsche had drawn up plans for a mid-engine sportscar using that racing V16 and a three-seat cockpit configuration many decades before McLaren would adopt this central driving position setup in their own F1 hypercar. For Auto Union, the outbreak of World War 2 contributed to the premature end of the Type 59 project. No car was ever constructed… until Audi Tradition and Crosthwaite and Gardiner made it happen. That car debuted at last summer’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, while Adui Tradition even won awards for this work.
So, back to the RS002. We know the design department had finalized the car’s design in 1985. We know working and driving test mules (today known as RS 001) were operational in 1985. In the meantime, a full-size non-running prototype of the RS 002 was built at some point. By 2000 this same prototype RS 002 was a fixture in the museum mobile. Later, around 2016, Audi Tradition fitted the car with a Group B 5-cylinder engine and drivetrain, just as the RS 001 mules had been fitted with. They did this so that the RS 002 could take part in dynamic exhibitions (see also: The Ice St. Moritz.) rather than simply gathering dust in the museum.
Is it real? Well, like the Auto Union Type 59, the RS 002 racecar planned for Group S rally racing was never actually built. Whether this is an engine swapped into a 1985 design prototype as my research suggests or a replica built in the 1990s by Audi to harken the period doesn’t really matter in the end… at least not to me. I’m fine with the unreal so long as they’re honest about it… and we know what this car was. Beyond that, there’s no question that the Auto Union replicas, replicas we are certain Audi Tradition did create, are spectacular in their own right. I believe the RS 002 is real, and I’m fine if it’s not.
Want to read more about the Mittelmotor story? You can find the full series HERE.
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18 – Audi Club Kansas City Le Mans Go Karting, Kansas City, KS 🇺🇸 – Club Gathering
18 – Museum Day, Audi museum mobile, Ingolstadt, Germany 🇩🇪 – Museum Activity
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