Audi 2010 Annual Report Download - page 84

82
Stig’s special trick
It was cold – as cold as it was on the Night of the Long Knives during
the 1984 Monte Carlo Rally. But in 2010, Stig Blomqvist was not
fi ghting for the world championship. This time the racing legend was
driving the Audi e-tron Silvretta with four electric motors.
The question is written all
over his face – but Blomqvist
doesn’t ask it. Instead, his
eyes wander around the
car’s interior. The 64-year-old reaches
for his reading glasses on the center
console. He puts them on and his
eyes continue to wander. Blomqvist
is looking for any sign of whether the
car is ready to go. There, on the dial to
the left behind the steering wheel –
didn’t that indicator just move? It did,
didn’t it? Blomqvist takes his glasses
off again.
Small wonder that Blomqvist the
racing driver fi rst needs to get his
bearings. When he stepped on the gas
of the original quattro a good quarter
of a century ago, the turbo would
scream. The racing car driven by the
Swede at that time, with 360 hp and
450 Nm, roared powerfully into the
woodlands along the tracks of the rally.
Things are diff erent in 2010. Although
the e-tron Silvretta on the Audi testing
grounds near Munich Airport is ready
to go, not a sound can be heard.
No rumbling. No hissing. Nothing
indicates that the four electric motors
on the wheels are waiting to apply
their total of 600 Nm of torque as
propulsive power – and to do so starting
from zero revs. “That’s unsettling,”
grumbles the Scandinavian. “That
noise – that unbelievably brutal sound –
was what people liked so much.”
Test drive in the snow