Audi RS2
Car designers have come up with some odd hybrids over the
years: there was the shotgun marriage of SUV and sports car
that gave us the BMW X6, the saloon and supercar amalgam
that is the Porsche Panamera, and the coming together of
lawnmower and wheelbarrow that produced the Reliant Robin.
Not a particularly inspiring list, we think you'd agree.
However, there is one genre-merging car that it is cool to
admit to liking, and which, we believe, will appreciate
significantly in value over the next ten years - the Audi
RS2 - which brought together the two previously diametrically
opposed qualities of estate car practicality and sports car
performance.
Produced in partnership with Porsche during the mid 1990s,
the RS2 took the rather staid 80 Avant body and added a
modified version of the 20 valve 5 cylinder engine last seen
in the Ur Quattro, Porsche-developed brakes and suspension,
and some subtle tweaks to the bodywork to produce a more
aggressive silhouette.
The result was a car that, with 311bhp and Audi's Quattro
four wheel drive system, could hit 30 mph faster than a
McLaren F1 road car, and reach 60 mph in a very respectable
4.8 seconds. Not bad for a machine that can also transport a
dozing labrador and five adults in comfort.
Driving an RS2 today requires little readjustment for those
used to more modern machinery: there's air conditioning,
power steering and ABS, and, although turbo
lag is in evidence at low revs, once beyond 3,500 rpm the engine
delivers enough torque to see the large estate launch
forward with incongruous speed, all four wheels scrabbling
for traction in the lower gears. There's certainly enough
pace to keep an E46 M3 or Impreza WRX Sti at bay - at least
in a straight line.
Like most Audis the RS2 has its engine slung out ahead of
the front wheels, resulting in a very front biased weight distribution.
This gives the car a noticeably nose-heavy disposition, with
understeer being the prevailing characteristic when the
limits are breached, but, as these limits are fairly high,
this is not something that will trouble you outside of a
trackday.
The track is not really the Audi's natural habitat, though;
it is far more at home on fast sweeping A roads and
derestricted Autobahns, where it feels stable and confidence
inspiring well in to triple figure speeds.
The brakes, which can often be a weak point on German super
saloons (hold your head in shame, BMW) are as good as you
would expect from a system lifted from Porsche's iconic 968
Club Sport. 304 mm front discs and 299mm rear discs are
clamped by 4 piston callipers, providing strong, fade free
performance even after repeated stops from high speed. We
wouldn't recommend testing their performance when using the
Audi's load lugging capabilities, though, as you might find
a flying labrador heading rapidly towards the back of your
seat.
Image-wise, the RS2 manages to avoid the usual trap of
falling into the unloved area betwixt modern and classic,
primarily because its shape, together with the visual tweaks
used to give it a more muscular appearance than its
stablemates when new, make it appear more contemporary than
some of its peers from the 1990s. Add in the fact that fewer
than 3000 cars were ever produced (with only 180 in right
hand drive) and you have a very rare and desirable car.
This rarity has kept used values high - £10,000 seems to be
the absolute minimum currently, and you can easily double
that for an immaculate example. Although this might seem
expensive compared to, say, a mid-90s M5, we believe that
the Porsche connection and the relatively small numbers of
RS2s produced will ultimately result in their value
appreciating significantly over the next ten years. This
means that you should be able to buy one today, make full
use of it (and RS2s are nothing if not practical mile
eaters), and sell on, should you wish, at a profit some
years down the line. There are few other cars that we can
think of for which the same could be said.
