![](https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/2019/06/quattro-ppihc-drag.jpg?w=1920)
![](https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/2019/06/quattro-ppihc-drag.jpg?w=1920)
Race cars that specialize in their disciplines of motorsport typically perform poorly when taken out of their comfort zone, but it’s not a hard and fast rule. Such is proved by a cameo of an Audi Quattro S1 built to compete at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb at the home of European drag racing: Santa Pod Raceway.
The car you see below isn’t one of the original 214 cars that Audi built to homologate its Sport Quattro for the World Rally Championship; it’s a faithful replica stitched together from an Audi 80 and a Coupe Quattro according to a Speedhunters highlight on the car. Rather than being built completely to historic spec, however, this Quattro is a modern reinterpretation of the same formula that made the Audi Quattro so successful: five cylinders, one turbocharger, and four driven wheels.
By reinterpretation, that means using the 2.5-liter turbo engine from an Audi TT RS, plus almost everything downstream of it. With forged internals, oversized valves, and a giant turbocharger, this little “07K” engine as it’s known to Volkswageneers whips up numbers that put to shame even the original Group B Audi. A mountainous 891 horsepower and 670 pound-feet of torque distributed to all four wheels is enough to make this Quattro capable of a damn quick quarter-mile pass—10.5 seconds—on its low boost setting.
![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mxijvLMKwzs/hqdefault.jpg)
According to the video’s description, this car’s peak boost of 2.4 bar (35 psi) wasn’t used during this run, suggesting the car’s ultimate quarter-mile time would be even quicker, possibly even under 10 seconds. Not bad for a car that’s built for monster hillclimbs.
h/t: Jalopnik