Every time one of our beloved European automotive brands announces a special performance model, we hold our breath and await those grim words: Not available in the USA. This has happened countless times before, and in 2000, Audi figured we'd never want the incredible B5 RS4 Avant bi-turbo.
With such disappointing news, most sane people sought solace in the standard-issue B5 S4 twin-turbo and performed a few engine mods to get near the RS4's horsepower, although the aggressive widebody looks were more complicated to replicate. Still this wasn't enough for everybody, and a few brave souls started the long, expensive and frustrating process of buying an RS4 in Germany and having it federalized.
Importing and legalizing a European-market car is enough to make even the most hardcore and devout Audi fan question their devotion to the four rings. Paul de Rushe, a life-long M3 owner and recent convert to the quattro religion, briefly considered importing a genuine RS4, but figured he'd do things his own way. The result of his labor is what you see here.
Any Audi purist reading this and cringing at the thought of a perfectly good RS4 being intentionally dismantled for Paul's amusement may want to take a breath before proceeding.
"I was an M3 guy my whole life, until 2000 when I bought an S4. I then went to Germany and bought an RS4, and in the process of trying to get the car federalized I decided it wasn't worth it. So I found a shop overseas and we stripped it," Paul said. "It took about three weeks to strip the entire car and just one week to build it back up."
Building an RS4 from a standard S4 sedan in seven days seems ludicrous, but Paul assured us it wasn't that hard. "The rear quarter panels are the only thing you have to cut; everything else pulls right off and bolts back on."
Although we're sure there's more to it than that, the genius idea of choosing the all-OEM route is that you have Audi's engineers do all the hard work sculpting the perfect lines, flared fenders and aggressive front bumper. It's impossible to go wrong.
Paul had Jimmy Carvino, the owner of Rojo Collision, take care of building the S4, and the only real problem he encountered involved modifying the rear bumper to fit with the widened rear fenders. "Back then, I didn't think I could use the RS4 bumper, so used a European S4 bumper," said Paul. "Jimmy had to heat it to widen it. The process on that bumper took a whole day because every time you heated it, it would fit perfectly. But once you sprayed and baked it, it shrank back down. He sprayed it maybe about six times before they got it to stay."