Audis at Pikes Peak.
One of the TV ads for Peugeot shows off its sporting prestige by mentioning the result of the Pikes Peak hillclimb in 1988, when 405 16T driver Ari Vatanen won the event and set a record which still stands today. Quite true, but it doesn’t tell the story with anything like the correct balance.
Pikes Peak is a 4301 m mountain
in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, and is the scene for the most famous hill climb event in
the. world. For teams and drivers alike, it demands endurance and speed over the. 19.96 km
gravel road. which includes 157 un-guard-railed corners in the climb from 2866 m up to the
4.301 m summit (Mt Kosciusko in Australia is only 2230 m high!)
Hill climbs have been hold there since 1916, when Rea Lentz in a Romano Special won in a time of 20 minutes 55-6 seconds. VWs and their derivatives have competed since the 1960s, when classes were arranged for open wheelers, stock cars, and open and production rally cars. VW and Porsche-engined buggies, rails and bajas have proved successful, particularly when turbocharged
VW themselves attacked Pikes Peak from 1985 to 1987 with different twin engined
Golfs. The most extreme example having two 16V 1800cc turbo engines mounted
longitudinally! Audi's first attempt was also in 1985 when Michele Mouton (see photo)
blasted a Sport quattro to the top in a winning 11 minutes 25.39 seconds, a record then.
How humiliating for the good old boys in their big super stock Chevys and Dodges, beaten
by a woman!
In 1986 Audi was back again. this time with Bobby Unser Sr. Driving an improved Sport quattro. Its hardly surprising that he won the event, but what is amazing was his time: 16 seconds quicker than Michele Mouton’s effort the previous year, with 11 minutes 9.22 seconds.
In 1987 things got serious. Peugeot appeared for the first time with specially prepared rear engined 205 turbo 16s, driven by ’87 Paris-Dakar winner Ari Vatanen, five time Safari rally winner Shekhar Mehta and Italian rallyist Andrea Zanussi. Other cars included an MG Metro 6R4, Ford RS-200s, 4WD Mazda RX7s as well as the usual open wheelers and super stock car. Audi’s only entrant was a Batmobile S1 Sport quattro driven by Walter Rohrl.
The winner ? Although the Peugeot was fastest in practice, the event went to the amazing Walter Rohrl, who blasted the Audi to the top in an amazing 10:47.85, shattering Bobby Unser’s record by 21.4 seconds ! This was Walter Rohrl’s first ever attempt at Pikes Peak, and he beat Ari Vatanen’s Peugeot by more than 15 seconds. The best V8 open wheeler buggies were a further 20 seconds behind, with the ungainly super stockers more than one and a half minutes off the pace.
Audi did not return to Pikes Peak in 1988, concentrating instead on the USA Trans Am series (which they went on to win!) with the Audi 200 quattro. They had proved their point. In Audi’s absence, Ari Vatanen did go on to win the 1988 Pikes Peak. The last time the event saw the awesome Group B rally cars, with a record time of 10:47.22. This is the basis of the Peugeot TV ad (which also features the excellent sound of Vince Jones singing "I’ve got you under my skin").
But on his second attempt, and with twelve months extra development under their belt, Ari Vatanen and Peugeot could only beat Walter Rohrl’s time by 0.63 seconds, over a distance of nearly 20 km! That’s only a 0.097% improvement. Compare that with the huge leaps by which Audi would improve each year.
And here’s some food for thought: after his 1987 record, Walter Rohrl admitted that he had made many mistakes (being his first attempt), and that should he try again, he could yet shave a further 25 seconds off his time ! What a shame that never came about.