The very first time I saw this A4, I was already sure the car would be rebuilt. Harri, who had previously built several show cars including a widebody Passat two-door coupe, had just changed his daily-driver Mk5 Golf to the A4. He’d told his wife he needed quattro because he was going to start cross-country skiing, and came to show me his new purchase. With his background, it was hard to believe he was simply buying a car to deal with snow.
Harri’s the kind of guy who likes to do as much work himself as possible, tackling everything from engine work to paint jobs. As long as I’ve known him, his home garage has always had a project, so this was inevitably the next car for him to fix.
It has to be said, the ’02 1.8Tq wasn’t exactly pristine. Even though it looked nice, and only had 80,000 miles on the clock, it had a slipping clutch and a weird K04 turbo conversion. But in its favor was some KW coilovers and a BSR cat-back exhaust.
First things to be changed were obviously the turbo and clutch. Instead of the usual disco potato, Harri decided to use a Holset HE221W turbine – it’s small but makes the engine feel like a naturally aspirated V8 with a smooth torque curve. The bottom-end was also strengthened with H-profile rods as a precaution against higher boost levels.
Red Audi S4 Recaros with matching door cards and rear seats were found in Austria
With Turbotec software running bigger injectors, and a pair of intercoolers from Audi’s 2.5L V6 TDI keeping everything cool, the engine gave an impressive 333hp on dyno.
Red
The A4 still had its rather boring interior, so Harri started looking for new seats online. A visit to eBay discovered some red leather Recaros, rear seats and matching door panels from a B7 S4. They were in Austria but the price was right…
Once the new parts were fitted, the Finn decided to continue the theme with red trim pieces on the doors and dash, as well as a red shift boot and even red carpet. But it didn’t stop there!
Inspired by his red cockpit, Harri found matching leather and stitched four covers for the engine compartment, including the valve cover and rain tray.
By this stage, Harri was nuts-deep into the project and had bought a Rieger front spoiler and side skirts. He’d also installed a full-length Webasto electric sunroof and painted the roof gloss black to disguise it slightly.