Junkyard Find: 1989 Audi 200 Quattro Turbo

by Murilee Martin

Published: October 4th, 2012

junkyard find 1989 audi 200 quattro turbo

The 1984 Audi 5000 Junkyard Find reminded us about the nightmare faced by Audi after 60 Minutes framed the 5000 as a an unintended accelerator in 1986. Audi sales took a real beating in the late 1980s, but some 5000s (renamed the 200 in an attempt to banish the stigma of a car whose greatest sin was the proximity of the brake pedal to the gas pedal) were bought in 1989. Here’s an optioned-up example that I found in the same Denver junkyard as the ’84.

You didn’t have a lot of options for all-wheel-drive sedans in the late 1980s; the AMC Eagle’s last year was 1987, Subarus were still primitive and cramped, the BMW 325iX made no sense, and Camry shoppers fell asleep before the salesman could even show them the All-Trac version. The 200 Quattro, on the other hand, just glowed with technological ~~complexity~~ sophistication, and it was big and comfortable.

I might need to go back and get this cool DIFF controller switch.

162 horsepower from a turbocharged five-banger mounted way forward in the engine compartment.

The best part is that you could get this car with a 5-speed.

Just 120,146 miles on this one. The interior is very nice, too; it looks like a single fender-bender that banged up a few body panels doomed this car to the automotive equivalent of the glue factory.

#1980s #1989 #1989Audi200 #1989Audi200Quattro #Audi #AudiQuattro #Denver #DownOnTheJunkyard #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #Turbo #Quattro #Turbocharging

Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.

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2 of 30 comments

Obbop on Oct 06, 2012

I will take a slant-6 over a slant-5 any day and nights, too.

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Audi200qtw on Jan 18, 2016

where is this car located what junyard im an audi enthuist hopefully will be buying a audi 200 soon i would take the whole as a parts car ik the parts are very expensive

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