The present AUDI in my life is a 1990 Audi 100 (the basic 138 horsepower, 5-cylinder, front-wheel drive version) which currently has 287,000+ miles on the odometer (as of March 2008) !
The interior is still almost new looking, the paint job still looks very good (not bad for a car this old!) and the car is mechanically sound. I get about 20 - 22 mpg around town, and the engine does NOT burn any oil (generally 5,000 miles between oil changes using synthetic or semi-synthetic oil).
I brought the car to Texas from the Pacific Northwest in August, 2004 (after 4 grueling days on the road!), and it's been holding up well to the extreme weather that we have here in the Dallas area (especially during the summer where we have many days at or over 100°F!). Luckily the car is kept under a carport most of the time, keeping the intense sun at bay during summer and out of harm of the occasional hailstorms in the spring).
The car has only minor modifications and upgrades, including:
- Lowered suspension (approx. 2" [5 cm] lower than stock)
- 16" wheels with unidirectional Bridgestone Potenza RE950 tires (great handling tires, highly recommended, unfortunately no longer available...)
- Sony CD/AM/FM stereo (replacing the factory AM/FM/Cassette unit)
- Window tinting
- European spec headlamps (from Great Britain actually)
- European spec front sidemarker lamps (clear instead of orange)
- Painted grill trim
The 1990 Audi 100 as shown on a "personalized" PhotoStamp. These original PhotoStamps (first series) could be ordered on a limited basis from August 10 to September 30, 2004 from stamps.com. The original trial program has ended and the US Postal Service started another 1-year trial program in early 2005 (and which was extended for another year by the US Postal Service in May 2006). In any case, the above stamp will be fairly "rare" since only one sheet of 20 stamps was ordered (the stamp above is #6 from the sheet). According to recent stamp catalogs, this is worth about 10 dollars...
A second company, endicia.com, entered the "personalized postage" market in mid-2005 with a product called "PictureItPostage". Above is an example of one of their stamps (or "personalized postage" as the US Postal Service prefers to call it!).
The "TCS" badge on the grill of the Audi 100 (see top photo). If you are from Switzerland, you'll recognize that TCS stands for "Touring Club de Suisse" (one of Switzerland's automobile associations, similar to the American Automobile Association - AAA - here in the USA). This badge is made of metal and is no longer given out by the TCS to its members (all you get now is a sticker for your bumper or windshield); I'm not sure when they stopped issuing metal badges, but it is probably over 30 years ago! This badge has been on my various cars for the past 19 years! I obtained it from the TCS office in Kreuzlingen (after asking nicely ...) in 1986.
Every vehicle (cars & motorcycles) that I have ever owned, have had (and will continue to have) "CH" stickers on them.
Again, if you're from Europe; Switzerland specifically, you'll recognize that "CH" stands for Switzerland ("why not 'S' you may ask"? ... well, Sweden uses "S", so Switzerland gets to use "CH" - which means "Confederatio Helvetica" - Latin for 'Federation of Helvetia', ie: "Switzerland").
In Europe, if you drive beyond the borders of your country, you are required to have a country identification sticker on your back bumper. Most are easy to decipher: GB - Great Britain, D - Germany (Deutschland), F - France, L - Luxembourg, NL - Netherlands, B - Belgium, DK - Denmark, ES - Spain (Espana), I - Italy, A - Austria and FL - Liechtenstein (Fürstentum Liechtenstein - Grand Duchy of Liechtenstein) to name a few...
Other Audi's I have owned...
(Acquired new by my father in 1972, I obtained it in approx. 1980 while in college)
(The car after a few "modifications" during the college years. The car did not survive Michigan salt-encrusted winter roads for more than a couple of years, the pipe that you see under the floor-pan is not the exhaust, but a make-shift metal frame made from square tubing that had to be welded in place to strengthen the unibody due to all the rust on the floor).
(Yes, that is me in the trunk of my '72 Audi 100LS; the picture was a self-portrait taken for a photography course that I took in college around 1982. ...And I still have the license plate!)
This was my 1st car, acquired in 1978 while I was in high school, it was replaced by the 1972 Audi 100LS shown above just a few years later when mechanical problems and Michigan rust got to it; luckily many of the parts from this car also fit on the '72 model!
My 1986 Audi Coupe GT as it looked the day I picked it up from the dealer in December 1986.
(The car as it looks now; my brother has purchased it and is still driving it and it has been heavily modified for track use - see below)
The 1986 Audi Coupe GT as seen on a "personalized" PhotoStamp (#1 from a sheet of 20); only 2 sheets of 20 were produced.
Other Audi's:
While I did not own the 1979 Audi 5000S shown in the PictureItPostage stamp above, I did get to drive it (as it belonged to my father at the time). I took the photo in the summer of 1980 on Molas Pass (at 10,910 feet / 3,325 meters above sea level) in Colorado; I actually drove past this same spot in 2006 during a vacation in Colorado - 26 years later!
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