This man's miniature Audi Quattro is a big deal

Anyone who watched a night forest rally stage in the Sabi area in the late 1980s will recall the shattering sound of the Audi Quattro S1 driven by motorsport folk hero Sarel van der Merwe.

The excitement began long before the car burst into view as the sound filtered through the huge pine trees. In the lower rev regions the engine note was a soulful wail and almost instantaneously rose to an unholy 8,500rpm shriek. Each time the driver changed gears there was a pop like a cannon ball firing, and when Sarel lifted off the gas the turbo waste gate emitted a chittering sound. It was if the forest’s entire bird population had taken fright and headed north for Europe.

Cut to late July 2022 and the Cars in the Park exhibition at Zwartkops Raceway. A bunch of us were admiring a fantastic remake of the immortal Quattro S1 and Henk Dam, a well-known car collector, explained he was one of those guys standing in the Sabi forest when Sarel was rallying king.

“And you know what? I’m getting goose bumps as I tell you this.” And as he said that, the fine hairs on my arms and neck also rose. The Quattro S1 (this was before Audi started naming their quattros with a lower-case “q”) was the reason we travelled hundreds of kilometres to stand in a forest at night; for Van der Merwe's otherworldly driving, the Audi’s speed and especially its sound.

As luck will have it, the builder of this tribute to the Quattro S1 happened to appear and the tale of this amazing car unfolded. And the first question was why Riaan Olwage decided to make the car so tiny.

“I don’t really know, other to say I like small things,” said Olwage. “I’m a small person and maybe that has something to do with it. But to me, small things are cute.”

Olwage decided to make his tribute to the Quattro S1 in three-quarter size. It was an inspired idea because this meant he could build the car cheaply using a homemade steel tube chassis and avoid the expense of trying to source an Audi Quattro coupe body and modifying it to resemble the rare rally car of which only a handful were built.

Olwage, a 52-year-old motor mechanic, first built a 1:18th scale model , which was a lot of work itself. The actual, workable three-quarter scale car took him six years.

“I assembled a huge amount of pictures of the S1 from the internet and decided to go with the most famous version, as driven by Walter Rohrl to win the 1985 San Remo Rally. I also managed to get the dimensions of the car from a sort of blueprint published on one of the sites, so I could scale every dimension properly to get the proportions right.”

He used pieces of cardboard and a thin steel framework to form the basic shape which he then covered in body putty to obtain smooth lines. Once he was satisfied, he laid on fibreglass to make a mould to form the final body shape.

“It was a messy job and took me ages. The chassis was built-up using square steel tubing. By this stage I had also assembled the mechanical parts for the car. I had huge assistance from my neighbour Nico Beukman, who donated lots of parts from a Marauder project he had abandoned.”

Olwage used a Datsun 1200 bakkie engine for his power unit and a similar gearbox. The rear axle is from a Ford Escort Mk I and the suspension he made himself, using wishbones at the front and a four-link system at the rear. Yes, this is the only Quattro S1 in existence that is rear-wheel drive.

“Nico also helped me with a set of gauges that went into the dashboard and the VDO instruments look close to the original Quattro S1 layout, as does the switchgear. I used stuff given to me. The coil-over springs and dampers are weird. The rear ones are adjusted by an exhaust clamp, so we are not talking hi-tech.”

Olwage managed to create a tiny replica of one of the most famous rally cars the world has ever seen. Its proportions are perfectly scaled and he managed to get a set of wheels that look like the originals, only smaller.

“I stopped outside a Midas spares shop and saw a bakkie with the exact rims I was after. I walked into the shop, cornered the owner and we did a deal for his rims right there and then. They are 13-inch rims, about 25% smaller than the originals, but they have the correct spoke pattern.”

During a later visit to Olwage's home near Villeria in Tshwane, I saw the car run as he took it for a spin around the block. And the day before my visit the mini-Quattro took part in its first rally.

“Because it’s so small and so low, it feels like you are going 350km/h all the time. And because it has such a short wheelbase, you just touch the steering wheel and it turns. I had lots of fun, but rallying destroys a car like this, so I think I am going to retire it. It was meant to be a showpiece, a talking point.”

Judging by the reaction to the scaled-down Audi at Cars in the Park, it’s already done its job. How many other cars would make the hairs on your arms stand to attention?

As I am writing this, it’s happening again.

Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.