Those Good Old Days | ’74 Audi 100 LS

At the VW Outlaws show last september, Danny and I saw this amazing new project.
We made an appointment for a shoot and here’s the story. I could rewrite the text Patrick send me, but he did a good job, so read his story and enjoy the photos.

“I bought the car in may 2011 from a good friend of mine in my hometown (he bought it end of 2009, but he never touched / drove the car). It is a 1974 Audi 100 LS with an 1.8 litre engine and 85 horse power. First it was just planned to lower it a bit and put some nice wheels on… just to have a nice car for sunny sunday drives…

But after figuring out that it is more difficult to make the wheels fit on the car because of the different bolt patterns and the centering and the fact that there is no suspension available for this kind of car, I totally changed my plans and started building it different….”radical” is the word I heard most of the time!

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Together with Patrick Prüß (aka Shorty) from www.cultwerk.com I have visited the Wolfsgruppe VAG Event in Poland in july 2011… At this show we met the guys from Algrundo.com, a Polish airride specialist. Together with our friend Przemo Brzozowski from the Wolfsgruppe, who translated everything for us, we made the plan to build a real different car with a radical airride… but without damaging or harming the car (because that would have been a shame!).

So back home we measured everything on the car and ordered a set of H&R coilover shocks from Loisl (AH Exclusive Parts). Those shocks were forwarded directly to Algrundo to make the change to Airride shocks, so they completed them with bags and holders.

In the meantime Shorty did a lot of work on & in the car because I didnt had the time to do it on my own… A lot of welding had to be done (the car is over 37 years old and the rust protection wasn’t very good these times)… Also the electricity of the car caused a lot of problems, because the previous owner made a lot of wrong things while working on the car.
Shorty also changed the electric setup of the car because the airride needs a lot of power with it´s 4 compressors (to fill up the 3 tanks = 60 litres). So 2 gel batteries with a switch were installed. To reload the batteries faster and better an other alternator from an Mk2 Golf G60 was installed together with a bigger ignition coil. Also the exhaust was hanging too low and was hitting the ground when the car was fully dropped, so the complete exhaust was changed and raised.

After these necessary works the real work could start… The trunk design / setup and the wheel fitment. I wanted to keep the car in this “Used Look” …
We raised the trunk floor about 10 cm to hide all wires and hoses underneath. The whole design (trunk ground, tanks with coffeebags, ropes, etc.) is made in this unique Used Look design. To make it completely different then other airride set-ups, we used 15mm copper pipes (Thanks to Dave for the work on that!).
The airride installation was mostly done by Shorty, who did an awesome job on that! The safety and perfection of the system is amazing! The airride is adjustable with an 9-switch by AVS or with an remote control.

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The wheel fitment was made with adapters produced by a good friend of us… Thanks Matze!
So now the fully chromed 17 inch Porsche Fuchs Wheels (7J ET 40) with the 185/35 tires fit thecar perfectly.

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From the outside some details were attached, some like a yellow foglight and some emblems on the front or a safety star and a metal D-sign. Not too much, so it suits the lines and the look of the car very well.

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In the inside not much was changed… The seats and doorcards were just cleaned and I made some floor mats from the same material as the trunk floor. For the airride a console was made wich holds 4 gauges (1 for each airride bag) and a switchable volt control for the 2 batteries.
Some nice detail gimmicks were added to the car. Done!

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At least a new radio was installed in the glovebox, together with an 16gb nano usb stick, I have always enough music to enjoy a ride in the car!
Over the winter I will add some more speakers and a subwoofer to get more sound in the car, but everything will just be hearable, not seeable… The speakers will be hidden. Yet you can just see some old ball speakers in the rear of the car with brand new 3 inch wide band speakers.

After a total of about 8 weeks the car was ready to hit the first show: VW Outlaws in Heerde (NL)… It was a full success and a lot of fun!

I like to thank everyone who was involved in this project!

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And to all the critics: The car is more than excellent driveable! It´s not just a show airride!
And the car wasn’t harmed and isn’t harmed while dropping the car to the ground!
It´s all just about the fun and the joy of driving such an old car… I really enjoy it!