When development work first started, the idea was to transfer the concept of the VW Iltis off-road vehicle, which had plenty of traction and was roadworthy, to a more powerful vehicle. It all started with “Development Assignment 262”, which was issued in 1977. The A1 that resulted from this was at the time the first four-wheel-drive prototype – a modified Audi 80 with a fivecylinder turbo engine. Audi presented the first car with quattro drive that also featured the name quattro on 3 March 1980 in an ice rink near Geneva. Audi initially planned to produce just 400 of these cars – by the time the model range was phased out in May 1991, it had built 11,452. The shortened Audi Sport quattro came along in 1984 as the homologation model for the World Rally Championship, and it still enjoys legendary status in the automotive world today. The original quattro on display here is a vehicle from the first series, in the special paint colour “Saturn metallic”.