From 1980 onwards, the Audi quattro with permanent four-wheel drive was built in limited production at Ingolstadt. The declared objective of Dr Ferdinand Piëch, Audi’s Board Member for Technical Development, was to establish permanent four-wheel drive across all model ranges and, in the long term, to achieve a production share of 25 per cent.
The first high-volume production model to feature the system was the Audi 80 quattro, introduced in 1982. Audi’s engineers transplanted the drivetrain of the original quattro into the two-door and four-door Audi 80 saloon. Initially, the model was available exclusively with a naturally aspirated 2.2-litre five-cylinder engine producing 136 PS. In 1983, a smaller 2.0-litre version with an output of 115 PS followed.
A major model upgrade in the summer of 1984 was accompanied by a split of the model range. The newly introduced Audi 90 was positioned higher in the range as a sportier, more exclusive and better-equipped model. Visual differences from the Audi 80 included a full-width rear light panel, body-coloured bumpers and side mouldings, matt-black window trim, wider headlamps with integrated main-beam units, as well as fog lamps and direction indicators integrated into the front bumper.
Front-wheel-drive models were available with the familiar five-cylinder engines from the Audi 80, now optionally fitted with a regulated three-way catalytic converter or, in the case of the smaller engine, an unregulated catalytic converter. For just under a year, the Audi 90 was also offered with a four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine. The Audi 90 quattro was available exclusively with the larger 2.2-litre five-cylinder engine, producing 88 kW (120 PS) with a catalytic converter or 100 kW (136 PS) without emissions control, transmitting its power permanently to all four wheels.
Between August 1984 and August 1986, a total of 66,101 first-generation Audi 90s rolled off the production line, of which just over one third were equipped with permanent quattro four-wheel drive.