Audi 90 quattro 20V review: the five-cylinder that proved quattro belonged on the road
2.9/5MotorsSouq Editorial Team
A 90 quattro 20V today is a collector's decision, not a used-car one: buy it for the five-cylinder soundtrack, the motorsport pedigree and the honest, unassisted steering, and accept that Bahrain has no parts network to support it. Budget for shipping components from Europe, a specialist mechanic who has actually worked on the era, and insurance that reflects a classic rather than a commuter.
Pros
- 20-valve five-cylinder engine with a genuinely thrilling, high-revving character
- Permanent quattro all-wheel drive with real motorsport pedigree
- Unassisted steering and a mechanical driving feel modern cars no longer offer
- Rising collector value compared to almost any other 1990s Audi saloon
Cons
- No parts network or dealer support in Bahrain; everything must be imported
- Interior trim and electronics of the era have aged worse than the mechanicals
- Genuinely well-kept examples are rare and hard to verify before buying
- Not remotely practical or safe by modern daily-driving standards
The 90 quattro 20V was Audi's answer to a question nobody else was asking in 1989: could the all-wheel-drive system that won rallies also make a conservative three-box saloon genuinely exciting to drive? The 20-valve five-cylinder, tuned to 164 hp and revving cleanly to nearly 7,000 rpm, gave it the character; permanent quattro gave it the traction to actually use that character on a damp road.
What it is like now
Unassisted steering, a manual gearbox with a mechanical feel modern cars have engineered away, and a five-cylinder note that no turbocharged four will ever replicate — this is a driver's car in the purest, least electronically-mediated sense. It is also, inevitably, a car that asks for patience: cold starts need a warm-up, the interior plastics of the era have not aged as gracefully as the mechanicals, and finding one that has not been neglected takes real searching.
In Bahrain, ownership means importing whatever the car needs, because there is no local stock of B3-era Audi parts and no dealer who will look at it twice. It rewards an owner who wants a project and a piece of quattro history, not someone who needs a second car for the school run.