By 1985, Audi sold a record 74,061 cars in the U.S. Nothing could have prepared high-fly­ing Audi for the debilitating series of events that began in 1986.

At the start of the 1986 season, the big boys (Audi, Ford, Lancia and Peugeot) were simply (and literally) fire-breathing. And then everything went very wrong.

January 27, 2025 This Record-Setting 1986 Audi Is Now Heading to Auction The one-off 1986 Audi 5000 CS Quattro lapped the Talladega Superspeedway in 46 seconds at a top speed of 206.3 mph.

In 1986, the American motor-racing legend Bobby Unser set a new record in his Sport quattro S1 with a time of 11:09:22 minutes.

This isn't the first time Audi has dug into its archives to show off Quattro's capability. In 2005, Audi recreated the original 1986 ad with then-current A6 sedan to show off its performance chops.