This project is moving along at a glacial pace… To be fair, there are still a few customer projects that were booked in before this one so I can’t really get stuck into it yet.
The shell has been stripped and shortened by about 320mm. That makes the wheelbase of these Group B replicas about an inch shorter than a short wheelbase / pre 1969 911! Scary! At the same time the windscreen angle needed to be changed by using the ‘A’ pillars from Audi 80 roof welded in at the firewall plenum, which in turn was chopped down and replaced with the period correct shape Kevlar roof and ‘C’ pillar section. Sadly (or not) we sacrificed an entire Audi 80 just the windscreen frame. The amount of parts being reused from the original the Quattro could be counted on one hand too, I guess the more parts that are sent metal recycling, the more collectable these things get!
The correct roof is actually wider at the top than the standard heavily raked Ur Quattro screen and roof so luckily everything lined up nicely once the frames were widened. The ‘B’ pillars also needed to be chopped down and made narrower to be more authentic, and the correct door frames were then grafted on to match the rake of the new roof. A great job if you think jigsaw puzzles that don’t have the correct shaped pieces are fun…
Next, an oversized centre tunnel was added to make roof for the hefty sequential gearbox, an exhaust system and water cooling lines for the rear mounted radiator. The rear floor was replaced by a sheet section and some temporary wheel tubs were added.
It is pretty exciting to have the shell recognisable as a car! I will have to hang the rest of the panels on it so they retain their shape, but the rollcage and fabricated strut towers are the next items on the substantial job list…
