A £639,000 Audi Sport quattro – And It Only Ranked Ninth at Auction!

You know you’re watching a serious collector-car auction when a 1985 Audi Sport quattro sells for nearly £640,000 – and still only manages ninth place in the auction house’s top ten results.

That was the extraordinary situation at Broad Arrow Auctions’ Zürich sale on 7 November 2026, where some of the world’s most desirable collector cars went under the hammer at the historic Dolder Grand hotel.

The auction generated CHF 24,723,338 in reported sales – approximately £22.4 million – with an 80% sell-through rate.

A Ferrari LaFerrari topped the disclosed results at the equivalent of £5.32 million, but for enthusiasts who remember Audi’s rallying successes in the 1980s, one particular result deserves a closer look.

The £639,000 Audi Sport quattro

The Audi was a 1985 Sport quattro, finished in Tornado Red, which sold for CHF 703,750 – approximately £639,000.

This wasn’t an ordinary quattro, of course. The Sport quattro was Audi’s short-wheelbase homologation special, developed to support its increasingly ambitious Group B rally programme.

With its shortened wheelbase, dramatically flared arches and turbocharged five-cylinder engine, it remains one of the most distinctive performance cars of the 1980s.

According to Broad Arrow’s catalogue, just 214 examples were produced, with 164 going to customers and the remainder retained by Audi Sport for competition use.

The road-going version developed 306 PS, while competition versions produced considerably more.

And it wasn’t exactly cheap when new.

In 1985, an Audi Sport quattro cost around £50,000 in Britain – an extraordinary sum for an Audi at the time. In Germany, it was priced at almost twice the cost of a contemporary Porsche 911 Turbo.

Four decades later, this particular example has sold for approximately £639,000. That’s more than twelve times its original UK list price, although inflation accounts for a significant part of that difference.

It was an expensive car when new, but few could have imagined just how valuable these rare, short-wheelbase quattros would become.

What Do We Know About This Particular Audi?

Broad Arrow’s original catalogue reveals some fascinating details about the car, which was offered as Lot 189.

Completed in December 1984 and delivered to its first owner in Switzerland in 1985, it was one of 128 Sport quattros finished in Tornado Red.

Remarkably, its first owner kept it until 2006, and the car remained in Swiss ownership thereafter.

At the time of cataloguing, the odometer showed 82,229 kilometres – approximately 51,100 miles.

The accompanying documentation included an Audi vehicle identification sheet, owner’s manual, two stamped service books and a history file.

Its Quartz/Graphite leather and Alcantara interior was complemented by period details including Sabelt harnesses, while a spare wheel fitted with a Pirelli Corsa rally tyre was also present.

Broad Arrow described the car as being in excellent condition, benefiting from years of specialist care.

For anyone who remembers the original quattro appearing on British roads, the Sport quattro is a fascinating reminder of just how far manufacturers were prepared to go in pursuit of rallying success.

You can explore the original Audi Sport quattro auction listing and photographs here.

A Ferrari Worth More Than £5 Million

If the Audi’s result was remarkable, the biggest disclosed sale was on another level altogether.

A 2015 Ferrari LaFerrari, finished in rare Bianco Fuji, achieved CHF 5,856,250 – approximately £5.32 million.

Next in the published rankings was an exceptionally rare 2009 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss, one of just 75 produced.

Broad Arrow confirmed that the Mercedes sold after the auction and placed it second in its top-ten results, between the LaFerrari and Bugatti, although the selling price was not disclosed.

The 2012 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse, originally displayed at the Geneva Motor Show, achieved CHF 2,368,750 – approximately £2.15 million.

Other notable results included a 2017 Ferrari F12tdf at approximately £1.40 million and a 2019 McLaren Senna at approximately £1.03 million.

From James Bond to Formula One

There were some particularly interesting cars beyond the multimillion-pound hypercars.

A 2020 Aston Martin DB5 Goldfinger Edition, complete with replica James Bond gadgets, sold for CHF 765,625 – approximately £695,000.

This was one of Aston Martin’s modern Goldfinger continuation cars rather than an original 1960s DB5.

Another highlight was a 2023 BMW 3.0 CSL previously owned by former Formula One driver Nick Heidfeld.

One of just 50 produced, the BMW was driven to the auction by Heidfeld himself and achieved CHF 906,250 – approximately £823,000.

And there were plenty of other interesting results, including a 1987 Ferrari Testarossa at approximately £136,000 and a 1996 Ferrari F355 Berlinetta at approximately £146,000.

Those are substantial sums in their own right, but they illustrate the extraordinary range of values at the Zürich sale.

An Extraordinary Result for an Audi

For us, though, the Audi Sport quattro remains one of the most interesting stories.

It may have been built in tiny numbers, with an engineering specification and competition heritage far removed from an ordinary road car, but it is still recognisably a product of the Audi quattro era.

And that makes its £639,000 result particularly striking.

Broad Arrow’s Zürich auction demonstrated just how much collectors are prepared to pay for exceptional examples of some of motoring’s most celebrated machines.

But here’s a question for enthusiasts: if you had £639,000 to spend on a classic car, would an Audi Sport quattro be on your shopping list?

Sterling equivalents are approximate, using a conversion of around £0.908 per Swiss franc. Published auction prices include buyer’s premium and applicable VAT on that premium.

Source: Broad Arrow Auctions’ official Zürich results announcement and the auction house’s original vehicle catalogue.