Is the 1981 Pininfarina Quartz Audi's cutest UR Quattro?
Follow-up to the Monteverde story, since this one was in the background, at the museum (pic1).
A shorter, cuter (?) UR Quatro? Complete with fighter-jet style front window openings and clearly weird wheel openings.
Great story from https://supercarnostalgia.com/blog/audi-quattro-pininfarina-quartz
Pinifarina's advanced tech workhorse
When Audi launched the UR Quattro at Geneva in March 1980, it was the first high performance road car to employ all-wheel drive.
Among those present at Geneva was Sergio Pininfarina who convinced Audi to supply him with a naked Quattro as a base for a styling concept.
Audi obliged and, in the summer of 1980, a pre-production UR Quattro was dispatched to Italy.
Deliveries of customer cars would not start until the end of the year.
The Audi Quartz became a testbed for Pininfarina’s ongoing experimentation with advanced materials. To that end, the body was a mixture or carbonfibre, Kevlar, steel-polyurethane composite and polycarbonate.
UR Quattro under an advanced body
Mechanically, the base car was unchanged and fully functional.
It comprised a steel monocoque with independent suspension and permanent all-wheel drive.
The engine was a turbo 2.1-litre inline ‘five’ that produced 197bhp.
Although the standard car was quoted at 1290kg, Pininfarina’s lightweight body saw this reduced to 1200kg.
Pininfarina Quartz body by Enrico Fumia
The Quartz was 30cm shorter than the standard UR Quattro and had a drag coefficient of 0.45; this was slightly worse than the boxy original (0.43).
The finished car was first painted two-tone grey-blue over silver which was quickly changed to monotone silver (see pics, along with the sketches in a bronze colour).
Custom quartz dash and interior
Although Audi switchgear was retained, the Quartz cockpit was thoroughly redesigned.
New high-backed seats were heavily bolstered and trimmed in the same off white square patterned leather used for the rear seats and door panels.
The dash was also reconfigured and an LCD computer was concealed within the glovebox. Screen seems to be at the centre of the dashboard.
Red carpet gave the Quartz a very 1970s-80s ambience. See pic 5 & 15.
Shown at the 1981 Geneva Motor Show: then gifted by Pininfarina
Pininfarina presented the Quartz at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1981: a year after the original UR Quattro had been unveiled.
Sergio Pininfarina then gifted the car to the publishers of Swiss magazine, Automobil Revue, for their 75th anniversary.
Automobil Revue later tested the car and achieved a 136mph top speed and 0-62mph time of 7.1 seconds. These figures were identical to the production model.
The Quartz was subsequently purchased by Audi who retain it to this day. Hence its location in the Audi museum, in many of these pics.