A Treser Audi Quattro in the 1980s

As cool and sharp as an icicle!

#ThrowBackThursday to when I met this thing in a showroom in Jeddah in the mid-80s.

I loved WRC at the time, and if the Audi Ur Quattro was uber cool, this Treser Convertible version blew the condenser right off the back of the freezer. It was as arctic-level as it’s blinding white finish suggested.

On first encountering it in the heat of a Saudi afternoon, my eyeballs popped out on stalks and froze in place, I was drooling so much my tongue unravelled to the supercooled-by-it’s-presence tiles, and anchored me to the spot by freezing to floor.

And when the sales guy showed us how the roof worked, the rest of the staff had to break out the Defib paddles to revive me – CLEAR!!

Okay, maybe that was all a slight exaggeration, but only slightly. Sharp-suited and seriously serious, this weapon was as audacious as it was effective, as desirable as it was logical.

And then there was the fact that it was legit properly done, as the customiser, Walter Treser had previously been Project Manager at Audi actually working on the Quattro, so he totally knew what he was doing.

The wonderful thing is that it appears to be still around as @agrammal posted a pic of it on Instagram, or at least one very much like it, just recently.

What a legendary thing!