Audi Celebrates 40 Years Of Its Five-Cylinder Engine

Sep 01, 2016 09:22 AM EDT | Mariechris Felipe

Recently, there are many rumors that the new Audi RS3 will leave behind the traditional five-cylinder engine to make way for the 2.0 TFSI four - cylinder. Many car enthusiast fuss about this as the five-cylinder engine of Audi is legendary and in fact just marks its 40 years in the business. Let us review its history highlighting the successes that made Audi famous.

The five cylinder engine of Audi debuted in the Audi 100 in 1977. It runs in gasoline, 136 hp at full capacity and already used an injection system for supplying fuel to the various cylinders.

Audi needed to come up with something that will set them apart from the stiff car market of four-cylinder engines and thought of the possibility of developing five or six engines. Although powerful, a six-engine cylinder would occupy a lot of space and will result to poor distributions of weight so Audi engineers opted for the five-cylinder engine and the rest is history.

Just one year later, the German brand launched its first diesel car, the Audi 200, with the five-cylinder engine too and a displacement of 2 liters , which developed 170 hp and a 265 nm that is so powerful in standards that time.  

Later would come the all-wheel drive and improved performance through the use of intercooler in the Audi quattro , reaching a figure worthy of admiring power in 1980, no less than 200hp. Just three years later, and following with its motto of "the forefront of technology , " the auto company launched the Audi Sport quattro with a newly developed five - cylinder and 20 valves that reached 310hp.

The base of the Sport quattro will be used to compete in the legendary Group  B World Rally Championship, reaching 450hp. In 1987, the charismatic Walter Röhrl won the crowned of the "Summit Pikes Peak" driving an Audi Sport quattro S1 with 598hp leaving far behind all his rivals.

Audi launched a revolution to some extent still present today in VAG vehicles as it launches the Audi 100 TDI in the Frankfurt Motor Show 1989. It was the first series production car equipped with a diesel engine and five - cylinder turbo direct injection with electronic control , getting his 120 hp 2.5 liters.

After a long hiatus, the second generation of the Audi TT in its RS version was launched again using five - cylinder gasoline engine with its 2.5 liters 350hp. It was followed by the Audi RS 3 Sportback and Q3 RS sports SUV all with the same five-cylinder engine. 

Performance and good work of the current five - cylinder 2.5 TFSI is reflected in its numerous awards, including "Engine of the Year" in seven consecutive years since 2010. We surely will not see the last of it. 

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