When a car starts life as a Family Runaround then races at ‘Pike's Peak’

Each car has a story to tell, but some rare ones have a story to tell that is made for the automotive history books – such a car is this remarkable Audi Quattro S1 E2 Sport, now for sale with Silverstone Auctions. Whoever secures this car at auction on May 28th at Leamington Spa, will own a legend!

To say this car is a star is to underplay its fame. Its videos on Youtube have generated no fewer than 2 million views and has featured in magazines around the world. We imagine that the car would be welcome again at Pikes Peak and the 'Hundredth Running' of the event takes place this year on June 26th. Not surprisingly it is accompanied by 18 box files of history, entry forms, programmes.

The car’s owner for the past 30 years, Keith Edwards, is a straight-talking bluff northerner from Cumbria, not much given to exaggeration, so you can believe him when he says of the car: “It’s scary to drive! It’s one of those cars that just wants to kill you all the time. You have to know what you are doing, otherwise it will bite you hard. You have to physically manhandle it, but when properly driven the feedback is a fantastic sensation.” The beast moves at such a rate that it generates 2G when accelerating. When taking on Pike’s Peak with its 1,000 feet no guardrail drops you have to be physically fit as one starts at 9,000 ft of elevation and finishes at the near oxygen free heights of 14,500. Keith says: “You have oxygen piped into the driver’s helmet because there is little oxygen up there and your adrenalin is eating up what little there is in the car.” Now 60, he is not exactly retiring. He has bought a drag racing motorbike that runs on rocket fuel.

On the market for the first time, Keith Edward's legendary 800+bhp, SWB, Audi S1 was initially purchased for £28,000 by the rally driver as a family road car but was hardly ever used in this capacity as Keith took the decision to prepare it for hill-climbing, initially at local club level, with the car being further developed every year until it was no longer practicable to run it as a road registered car. He estimates that he has spend £200,000 on it over the years.

Developed, developed and developed further over the years, there followed about 10 years In the British Hillclimb Championship, a further four or five enjoying invitation events around Europe, and finally the ultimate accolade, an invitation from Pikes Peak International Hill Climb to take part in 'The Race to the Clouds'.

Keith, a talented engineer with a successful garage business in Cumbria, has a legendary attention to detail and, throughout the two decades of development, every nut, bolt, pipe and bracket was given consideration in terms of its weight, fitness for purpose and aesthetic merit with shaving tenths of a second the criteria.

There came a point, however, when the only way to make the car more competitive was to shorten the wheelbase and Dialynx of Swindon, renowned Quattro specialists and builders of SWB cars and 'Group B' replicas, were tasked with the job.

The body was stripped of its panels, reduced in length by removing 320mm between the B and C posts, and rebuilt using Kevlar composite panels and mouldings (copied directly from Audi UK's own Group B car), with most of the glass replaced by Perspex. Only the original roof and doors remained and even the doors were pared down to about 4lbs in weight.

Shortly afterwards the 10-valve engine was replaced by a 20-valve unit which was extensively modified by Dialynx. Details of these engine mods are academic as the engine has been further developed by Keith himself since then (current spec below).

The car's adventures in Europe in this form are all documented in the enormous history file and on a number of YouTube videos.

The invitation to run the car at Pikes Peak was a major honour within the hill-climb community and was proudly received by Keith. The Audi was shipped to Colorado Springs in both 2018 and 2019, however, neither year was to bring fulfilment with the car overheating in 2018 (subsequently sorted and and tested at Blyton Park, pre-COVID) and, despite good practice runs in 2019, the cloud closed in on Race Day and that was that. The full story is on YouTube.

Whilst intending to return in 2020, COVID regulations, increasing costs and lack of time mean that Keith has, sadly, made the decision that after 30 years, he and his beloved Audi will have to part.