WHAT WAS THE AUDI 50?
By Lancaster Insurance Services |
1st March, 2019
In the 1970s there were many and various enigmas of modern life. Who actually liked the “Old English” flavour of Spangles? Why was Peter Clark’s Crime Desk on Southern Television so compulsive?
And, when playing Top Trumps, what was an Audi 50? It looked like a Volkswagen Polo, down to those strange trapdoor vents on the top of the dashboard and the circular air extractors on the C-pillars that caused such confusing to petrol pump attendants. But on the grille was the four rings of the Auto Union.
36 years before the launch of the A1, the 50 was the first post-war compact Audi, and while 1974 was, of course, the year of the Scirocco and the Passat, the new supermini was an equally important car for the Volkswagen empire.
The entry-level L was a car that tempted many a Beetle owner into the world of front wheel drive hatchbacks while the GL with its slightly enhanced 60 bhp output was the ideal choice of “second car” to a family that owned an B1-Series Audi 80.
The 50 also had a remarkably short gestation period, as development work had commenced in 1971. By that time the Audi-NSU division of VW was aware of the need of a successor to the Prinz 4/1000 for, asides from the Beetle, the era of rear engine small European cars were drawing to a close.
The new model would be an FWD three-door saloon with a maximum length of 11ft. 6 inches and a maximum weight of 1,543 lbs. Power was from a 1,093cc OHC unit and although the styling was largely in-house, Bertone shaped the rear window and added the extractor vents.
When Motor tested a prototype they were highly impressed; ‘Assuming they can build VW quality into this new four-seater, it could well retire the Beetle fairly smartly’. The 50 was launched in October 1974 and a German-built rival to the Fiat 127, Honda Civic, Peugeot 104 and Renault 5 it looked set for great success.
The fact that the Audi predated Ford’s supermini project by two years and that Opel would not build an FWD small hatchback until the 1982 Corsa A also pleased VW’s management. And, to further its appeal to the fashionable motorist, the 50 was available in such 1970s colours as “Senegal Red”.
Meanwhile, there were rumours of a Volkswagen-badged companion model in the pipeline. When the Polo made its bow five months later it served as both an entry-level version of the 50, and a smaller companion model to the Golf. British imports commenced in February 1976, but there were to be no official sales of the Audi. Before long it was clear that the Polo was the more popular of the two cars.
The bottom of the range N may have boasted single-speed wipers, plus a lack of chrome, and even a dipping rear view mirror, but it still offered the same quality. Audi had designed a two-door version, but when the resulting 1977 Derby bore the Volkswagen logo.
Audi finally discontinued the 50 in July 1978, while the Polo is now on its sixth incarnation. And it is still interesting to speculate if it would have enjoyed a marketing niche in the UK; for some reason, I can envisage a small Cadiz Orange Audi 50 parked on the driveway in a Thames Television sit-com…
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