1974 Audi 100 GL 1.9 gasoline from Sweden
Summary:
Beautiful, powerful, competent, noisy and thirsty, but simply adorable
Faults:
The gasket which keeps the stick shift (not sure if that's the right word, simply the stick you change gears with) aligned got worn out. Shifting gears is now a bit trickier, but still works.
General Comments:
Pros:
- Beautifully built, especially the front end of the car is simply gorgeous.
- Good engine power, easily keeps up with todays road speeds
- comfortable to ride
- pretty good heating controls (separate for passenger and driver seat).
- Very nice chrome details. (1974 was the last year for much of this)
- All electronics work perfectly and are easy to handle.
- Good quality feel on most components
- Very informative, honest and thorough instruction manual (deals with many things that would be considered secrets by todays standards)
Cons:
- Bad fuel economy, at least 12 litres / 100 km.
- Very noisy above 100km/h. Under that no problem at all.
- Pretty soggy suspension, which of course adds to the comfort as long as you aren't taking hard turns
- A bit weird (charming) placing of some things, the battery under the back seat, the front brake discs right under the engine
- Personally I don't think the rear end of the car matches the front end, front looking very aggressive and sporty, rear end looking like, say, a very old mans car
- No decent place keep my coke.
Bottom line: I love this car for many reasons, mostly for it looks, engine and personality, and the relative wealth of features for a car this age.
I would have expected a lot more trouble, of course I have only driven 5000 km so far, but that is more than enough for a lot of problems to emerge. Maybe I'm just lucky, the car has been _very_ well kept by the old lady that was the (only) previous owner. Still it's 33 years old and works very well.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 21st June, 2007
3rd Jan 2008, 15:16
Excellent review. The word you are looking for is "shifter cuff".
The battery was placed under the seat to move some weight from the front of the car to the back. They knew it would be front heavy and under-steer.
The brakes mounted inside added a lot to the comfortable ride of the car. When the wheel hits a pot hole there is a lot less mass dropping down and popping up. Yet there is more inert mass keeping the car level.
Isn't that ingenious German engineering? Maybe they were just copying the Citroen 2CV.