Mar, 19_2026 / Patryk Kościelniak / 4 min read

First Dance

I've grown up in advertising, where a six-month project feels incredibly long, almost the limit of what a creative mind can realistically forecast. Here with Audi, we made a plan for four years. What will I be doing in four years? I don't know.

This project was a childhood dream. Crazy powerful, with pure Group A and B DNA, a roaring five-cylinder sound, a wide body kit, and the same size ego and boldness as the machine itself. I'm an art director for life, so it started with a moodboard on Pinterest and tons of sketches. I knew it was going to be dark, made with aramid, with aero covers on forged wheels. A mix of everything.

I was incredibly lucky to be let into the so-called Audi Secret Garage. It's not really a secret that it's extremely hard to get inside. You need approval from Ingolstadt PR, the head of Audi Tradition, Timo Witt, and a long, long list of people. But that's another story.

Traffic light silhouette against the sun before the first drive

Same same but different

Being in Audi Tradition's sanctuary in Ingolstadt convinced me to merge colors and ideas from the dark, aggressive Dakar Audi RS Q e-tron, which won Dakar in 2024, with the Group B vibe of the '80s. A super raw motorsport dashboard with carbon, switches, and a single display instead of dozens of gauges with shaky needles.

Rally cockpit with ECU Master button plate on the steering wheel, carbon dashboard, tartan Recaro seat, and hydraulic handbrake — Carbon, switches, and a single display. The dashboard Röhrl never had

Same story with the wheels. The original 16-inch rally quattro wheels from Compomotive MO, made especially for the car, were too small, not in proportion but because of the brakes. 404 hp needs proper stopping power. You might say that Walter Röhrl somehow managed to stop the car with brakes fitted into 16-inch MOs. Yes, but it was Walter himself.

Open driver door revealing aramid door card, roll cage, and ECU Master controls inside the cockpit

ATL safety fuel cell fitted in the stripped boot of the Audi

Non-Netflix policy

I've mentioned Walter Röhrl, so I have to mention Michèle Mouton. Not because we're Netflix and need to tick inclusive boxes, but because I love the almost sci-fi idea of a woman driving one of the most brutal rally cars through gravel stages and beating the male heroes.

Unfortunately, we don't see that anymore. WRC today isn't about gladiators launching themselves in rocket-like machines into stages filled with uncontrolled crowds, and thankfully we don't see that part either. Now it's an athletic, cold-as-ice boys' club with ultra-safe capsules that have little in common with road-legal cars. The era of homologation specials is gone.

Front three-quarter view of the Audi ur-quattro on track showing the rally light bar and wide aramid body — Six rally lights, aramid arches, and the kind of presence that makes you step aside

The car we built pretends to be a rally-converted ur-quattro, but it's not. It was born as an Audi Coupé with a 10v naturally aspirated engine. Quattro, though. A donor car with four-wheel drive is always better. It saves a lot of time, money, and effort adapting it for a driveshaft.

The aramid body kit was made using original molds for a Group A2 ur-quattro rally car, crafted in aramid, Kevlar. The engine comes from a five-cylinder RS2/S2, equipped with forged pistons and a bigger turbo, making 404 hp. Some people go for the modern 2.5L RS3 DAZA engine, but we decided to stay period-correct with the long inline-five, mounted so far forward that the radiator has to sit on the left side of the engine.

Yes, it affects the driving, almost like the opposite of a 911, with its engine hanging over the rear.

The engine sits so far forward, the radiator had to move aside. Classic quattro layout, no compromises

Test day

We had never driven this car before. Literally never. Until I sat behind the wheel, I had never even heard the engine run. So the first time was on track, a controlled environment to test something a little insane.

Driver in balaclava and green jacket talking to a mechanic through the roll cage before the first run — Last words before first gear. The balaclava is on, the nerves are real

Helmets, harnesses, safety first. Then first gear, in an old original gearbox with a not-so-precise shifter. That was the first thing to be refined, along with the seating position and steering wheel.

Recaro seat with tartan upholstery and red Sabelt six-point harness seen through the window — The office. No adjustments, no comfort, no complaints

During testing, we decided to remove the brake servo. It just didn't work. The rally DNA of the car takes its toll.

It was only the first drive. So far, so good.

Panning shot of the Audi ur-quattro at speed on the track at dusk with motion-blurred background — 404 horsepower finding their feet. The first laps at Slomczyn, and the five-cylinder finally screaming

Dark Audi ur-quattro with rally light bar and aramid wide body kit standing on the track at Slomczyn at golden hour