For Auction: Ex-Works 1982 Audi Quattro A1 Group B Rally Car

Images: Bonhams

This gorgeous 1982 Audi Quattro A1 Group B rally car was used by Hannu Mikkola to battle Walter Röhrl in the Monte Carlo Rally in 1982. You’ll be able to buy it when it goes up for sale at Bonhams’ Goodwood 73rd Members Meeting Sale on the 21st of March.

Mikkola used the car, 900012, in Group 4 specifications in the 1982 Monte Carlo Rally, where he’d finish second behind Walter Röhrl’s Opel Ascona. He used it again later in the year at the Swedish Rally in which he finished 16th.

Audi kept the car in active duty in 1983, using it for training, before converting it to Group B spec and selling it to ex-SAAB rally racer Antero Laine.

Laine raced it in the 1983 Lombard RAC Rally, from which he’d retire. Things got better from there, however, and he won the Finnish Rally Championship in ’84 and ’85 and the Arctic Rally in ’84, ’85 and ’86.

In 1987 he sold it to Erkki Heikkurinen, who won the ’87 Manatta 200 Rally in it and then moved it on to Sakari Vierimaa. Marku Valtonen would drive it throughout ’88 and into ’89 before its rapid-fire ownership streak continuing when Vierimaa sold it to Raimo Skog.

Skog restored the car and raced it in rally sprints and ice races in Finland, selling it to Audi Collector Anders Carlsson in 1991. This finally allowed it to settle a little, as Carlsson put it on museum display and kept it until 1995.

900012’s current owner purchased it at the Brooks’ Olympia auction in 1995 and sent it to Konrad Schmidt Motorsport GmbH for a thorough inspection, commissioning all works necessary to return it to fighting shape.

Since then it’s been well maintained, making it a genuine works car with a long, successful and varied history in great condition. It’s going to head to auction on the 21st of March, 2015, at Bonhams’ Goodwood 73rd Members Meeting Sale. Head to their website here for more information.

Images via Bonhams