At a time when most of the growth is coming from sub-£50k classics, buyers of Audi Quattro Turbos have decided not to play along.
Our latest round of Price Guide Movers On The Slide reveals a small decline that drags prices down to £5.5k for rough examples and £12.5k for presentable, usable cars, while the mint ones are typically £27k with a further £10.5k premium attached to the very best. Low mileage, fully historied examples then form a sliding scale of premium on top of that.
At least, that’s what’s happening to the first generation 10-valve cars built from 1980 to 1989. The more powerful and valuable 20-valve models built from 1989 to 1991 are holding steady. Bear in mind that Quattros were latecomers to the broader price boom seen with other Eighties icons, a lag influenced by the difficulty in getting essential parts to keep them running, especially compared to better supported performance classics from the same era.
But despite the challenges of running one, and the fact that they lack the agile feel of a Porsche 911 or Lancia Delta Integrale, there’s something heroic about the Audi. Driving one feels like an event. And with its box wheelarches, jazzy seat fabrics and the digital dash on 1983-88 cars, it taps into Eighties nostalgia like few others. At current prices they seem good value.
In June Classic Car Auctions sold the 1985 10-valve car pictured for £23,865, a tidy 137k-mile example, just shy of the lower estimate. Given the wider trends in this sector of the market, it’s hard to see this recent slip as the beginning of a deep slide but buyers shouldn’t expect any significant post-purchase expenditure to be quickly covered by the sort of price growth that’s protected buyers of other rising classics.
Price Guide Movers On The Up is part of 18 regular pages of market tips, analysis and buying advice in the latest issue ofClassic Cars and this issue includes our 7-page Price Guide Quarterly update, covering more than 1400 different models.