With its Nogaro Blue paint and six-speed manual gearbox, today's Nice Price or No Dice S4 certainly stands out from the crowd. Let's see if its price tag will take a village.
Jeremy Clarkson has long averred that to be a true auto enthusiast, one must own an Alfa Romeo at least once in one's lifetime. He also famously stated that when he owned an Alfa GTV, its prop shaft fell out, turning the coupe into an impromptu pole vaulter. Still full-cred.
Alfa Romeo's storied history of such shenanigans, exacerbated
by the issues inherent in a non-officially imported car, tempered opinions on the 1996 Alfa Romeo 155 2.5 we considered yesterday. The general consensus was that something was bound to go wrong, and when it does, being an unofficial entrant in the U.S., it will likely be a challenge to rectify. At $13,000, that was a bridge too far for the little Alfa to cross. The result was a 72% No Dice loss.
Read more: These Are The Cars Our Readers Wish Would Depreciate Faster
Audi, Pardner
Alfa Romeo made it hard for enthusiasts in the U.S. to build their cred as the company went on a hiatus in selling cars here between 1995 and 2014, leaving only used models to carry the torch.
Another European carmaker, Audi, almost abandoned the U.S. in the late 1980s after an unflattering and highly salacious exposé on the CBS news program '60 Minutes' about supposed unintended acceleration caused sales to crater. Volkswagen's luxury brand stuck it out, renaming its models to overcome the stank of past associations while slowly building sales back up. Today, the company is better known for making great cars like today's 2008 S4 Quattro saloon than for conspiracy theories about magical accelerator pedals.
First introduced in 1991 as a sporting edition of the larger 100 series, the S4 model had shifted to the mid-sized A4 (there's that rebranding) by the end of the decade. Today, both the A4 and S4 are gone from the North American market, having been replaced, respectively, by the A5 and S5. The current S5, the mid-sized model's top-tier offering, comes with a turbocharged V6 making a factory-rated 360 horsepower. That's not all that far off the 340 horses this 2008 S4 Quattro was claimed to corral from the factory, and the older car gets its power from a naturally-aspirated V8 that also makes lovely noises and some serious (302 pound-feet) torque.
Bass-akwards
That 4.2-liter all-alloy engine is installed backwards in the S4, with the cam drive chains mounted at the rear of the motor, sharing quarters with the flywheel and rear main seal. Any work on those elements is an engine-out affair, so it's an essential factor that the seller of this 157,800-mile clean-title example claims it to be "well maintained" and "in excellent condition."
Another plus is that this appears to be a total time capsule car, with no add-ons, screwy personalizations, or modernizations save for a magnetic mobile phone mount on the dash. Everything else appears to be just as it left the factory in Ingolstadt.
From the pictures provided, the Nogaro Blue paint looks solid and is accented by gunmetal gray factory alloys and QUATTRO script on each of the back doors. Eschewing the general practice of identifying performance editions through their blacked-out trim, the S4 has brushed metal on the window surrounds, boot lip, and the caps of the sideview mirrors. That all looks both swank and in great shape. The wheels show no signs of curbing, but are wrapped in Forceum tires, which are generally what one might buy only if trying to sell a car and seeking to invest as little as possible for new tires in the process.
Bringing The Heat
The interior is also in great nick, with Recaro-embossed seats front and rear. All four seats are heated, and every butt gets swaddled in leather. One place where Audis of a certain age can fall down is in the digital displays on the dashboard. Those all look to be functioning as they should here, with both climate control zones and the double DIN stereo blazing red, and the multi-function display showing the whole car on the screen.
This is a six-speed stick-shift car, and, as the back doors elude, it's Quattro AWD behind that, making the most of the V8's kick. The seller doesn't say anything about the car's history, or whether it's had any recent service other than that statement about it being "well maintained." How much clutch is left? Has it ever been replaced? How about those timing chain guides? Are those original? There are a lot of questions that any prospective buyer should ask about this car. A pre-purchase inspection by someone who knows their way around Audis wouldn't hurt either.
A Rare Gem
But to get to that Q&A session or PPI by an Audi guru, we first need to get past this S4's $14,900 asking price to determine if it's even a contender. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot of cash, but for an old Audi, it's kind of a big deal.
The seller claims it to be a special opportunity, advising, "Don't miss your chance to own this rare gem." What do we think about this 'gem' and that $14,900 price? Is that a fair deal for a cool car that's been well cared for? Or is that just too much for this S4 to live up to?
You decide!
Nice Price or No Dice:
Denver, Colorado, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T Don R. for the hookup!
Help me out with NPOND. Contact me at robemslie@gmail.com and send a fixed-price tip. Remember to include your commenter handle.
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