At the four-front of technology

NOWADAYS EVERY PRESS release we receive insists that the firm concerned wants to be ‘disruptive’. It’s the standard cliché for every slightly different idea being promoted. Audi, though, genuinely merited the description when it launched the Quattro onto the world rally scene. With one machine it bulldozed the sport into four-wheel drive, mad turbo boost, double-clutch sequential gearboxes and a series of ever-more lurid homologation specials which finally killed the Group B era. Rallies would never be the same afterwards, and today 4WD is just another box to tick on your options list.