Honey, I shrunk the Quattro!

Anyone who ever watched a night-time forest rally stage in the  Sabi area in the late 1980s will recall the shattering sound of the Audi Quattro S1, driven by our motorsport folk-hero, Sarel van der Merwe.

The excitement began long before the car burst into view, as the sound filtered through the huge pine trees. In the lower rev regions the engine note was a soulful wail, and almost instantaneously rose to an unholy 8,500rpm shriek. Each time the driver changed gears there was a pop like a cannon ball firing, and when Sarel lifted off the gas, the turbo waste gate emitted a chittering sound. It was if the forest’s entire bird population had taken fright and headed north for Europe.

Cut to late July 2022 and the Cars in the Park exhibition at Zwartkops Raceway. A bunch of us were admiring a fantastic remake of the immortal Quattro S1 and Henk Dam, a well-known car collector, explained how he was one of those guys standing in the Sabi forest, back when Sarel was the rallying king.

“And you know what,” said Dam. “I’m getting goose bumps as I tell you this.” And as he said that, the fine hairs on my arms and neck rose too. The Quattro S1 (this was before Audi started naming their quattros with a lower-case “q”) was the reason we travelled hundreds of kilometres to stand in a forest at night; for Van der Merwe's otherworldly driving, the Audi’s speed, and especially its sound.

As luck will have it, the builder of this tribute to the Quattro S1 happened to make an appearance right then, and so the tail of this amazing car unfolded. And the first question to be answered was why Riaan Olwage decided to make the car so tiny.

“I don’t really know, other to say that I like small things,” says Olwage. “I’m a small person myself, and maybe that has something to do with it. But to me, small things are cute.”

From the outset, Olwage decided to make his tribute to the Quattro S1 in three-quarter size. It was an inspired idea, because this meant he could build the car cheaply, using a home-fabricated steel-tube chassis, and avoid the incredible expense of trying to source a genuine Audi Quattro coupe body and then modifying it to resemble the extremely rare rally car, of which only a handful were ever built.

Olwage, a 52-year-old motor mechanic by profession, first built a 1:18th scale model of the Quattro S1, which was lots of work in itself. He says the actual, workable three-quarter scale car he built took him six years.

“I assembled a huge amount of pictures of the S1 from the internet, and I decided to go with the most famous version of the car, as driven by Walter Rohrl, to win the 1985 San Remo Rally. I also managed to get the dimensions of the actual car from a sort of blueprint published on one of the sites, so I could scale every dimension properly, to get the proportions of the car right.”

He used pieces of cardboard and a thin steel framework to form the basic shape, which he then covered in body putty to obtain smooth lines. Once he was satisfied, he laid on fibreglass to make a mould, to form the final body shape.

“It was a hell of a messy job and it took me ages. The chassis was then built up using square steel tubing. By this stage I had also assembled the mechanical parts for the car. I have to say I had huge assistance from my neighbour, Nico Beukman, who donated lots of parts from a Marauder project he had abandoned.”

Olwage used a humble Datsun 1200 bakkie engine for his power unit, and a similar gearbox. The rear axle is from a Ford Escort Mk I, and the suspension he pretty much fabricated himself, using wishbones at the front and a four-link system at the rear. Yes, this is the only Quattro S1 in existence that is rear-wheel drive!

“Nico also helped me with a set of gauges that went into the dashboard, and the VDO instruments look pretty close to the original Quattro S1 layout, as does the switchgear. I used stuff that was given to me, pretty much. The coil-over springs and dampers are weird. The rear ones are adjusted by an exhaust clamp, so we are not talking hi-tech.”

The fact is, Olwage managed to create a tiny replica of one of the most famous rally cars the world has ever seen. Its proportions are perfectly scaled, and he even managed to get a set of wheels that look just like the  originals, only smaller.

“I stopped outside a Midas spares shop and saw a bakkie with the exact rims I was after. I walked into the shop, cornered the owner and we did a deal for his rims right there and then. They are 13-inch rims, about 25% smaller than the originals, but they have the correct spoke pattern.”

During a later visit to Olwage's home near Villeria in Tshwane, I saw the car run as he took it for a spin around the block. And the day before my visit, the mini-Quattro had  actually taken part in its first rally.

“Because it’s so small and so low, it feels like you are going 350km/h all the time. And because it has such a short wheel base, you just touch the steering wheel and it turns. I had lots of fun, but rallying destroys a car like this, so I think I am going to retire it. It was only meant to be a showpiece, a talking point.”

Judging by the reaction to the scaled-down Audi Quattro at Cars in the Park, it’s already done its job. How many other cars would make the hairs on your arms stand to attention?

In fact, as I am writing this, it’s happening again.