Mac Zaglewski is no stranger to custom metalwork. Growing up, he watched his father craft artwork in a blacksmith shop, before going to school to become a metallurgist and eventually, a fabricator. He’s worked in the metalworking business restoring yachts and cars for the past 15 years, having most recently led a team of craftsmen at Caledonia Coachworks, a restoration shop in Edinburgh, Scotland. He’s also an accomplished sculptor, specializing in stainless steel models.
But recently, Zaglewski went out on his own to explore a different project. Instead of restoring yet another old car, he’s decided to build something entirely new using two of Audi’s most legendary cars, the 2008 RS4 and the 1986 Ur-Quattro. The objective? A vehicle that replicates the Quattro’s iconic silhouette, with modern running gear and 650 horsepower.
Where’d He Come Up With That Idea?
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Speaking with me on the phone, Zaglewski says he came up with the plan in a dream after an underwhelming experience driving an original Ur-Quattro. He also just wanted a bit more excitement in his life, and got inspired by the likes of Singer and Alfaholics.
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“The guy [funding this project] has been my friend for quite a while,” he told me. “He bought a Quattro, and excuse my language, but it was a piece of crap. So one night I dreamt up this idea, wrote a huge email, gave him an outline of the cost, sent it over, and he was like, ‘Yeah, you know what? Let’s do it. That sounds exciting. I’ve got nothing exciting going on in my life at the moment, let’s do it.'”
Source: Mac Zaglewski
“I’ve been a classic car restorer and a sculptor for the past 15 years,” Zaglewski added. “And restoration doesn’t really appeal to me anymore. It’s a little bit boring from a sculpting perspective. I like designing things.
“The plan with this is, it’s a prototype and a concept for a run of cars. I will make this one with aluminum and steel for the body. However, the plan is to then take a mold and make whole carbon-fiber bodies. Think of Singer, Alfaholics, all of these sorts of companies which do carbon-fiber restomods—well it hasn’t happened for the Quattro, and it’s quite an iconic car.”
Source: 4rings.AI on Instagram via Mac Zaglewski
That begs the question: Why use the B7-generation Audi RS4 as a base? There are dozens of cars from the brand to choose from, so why the mid-2000s sedan? There are a few reasons, says Zaglewski.
“The RS4 is the last V8 [-powered] sedan from the Audi lineup, which still came with a manual gearbox,” he said. “And a manual gearbox is a must for a project like this.”
It’s not just the layout, either.
“The RS4 is a very [fun-to-drive] car,” Zaglewski adds. “The combination of Torson four-wheel drive rather than the Haldex system makes this much more technical, much more driver-focused, with 60 percent of the power going to the rear and 40 percent going to the front at all times. Plus, it’s a combination of a very, very good, naturally rigid bodywork that has no aluminum, rather than later models, in which [welds] would have to be drilled out.
“[The RS4 also] has nice, but relatively simple electronics, all of which can be transferred to the finished product. So it’s a good mixture of really nice technical, mechanical feeling of the car, with a relative simplicity compared to the later models, like the five-cylinder RS3, which uses a lot of aluminium and a lot of electronics that you wouldn’t use.”
So, How Far Along Is He?
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Zaglewski started the project in April, disassembling both cars down to their respective chassis and dipping them in acid to get to clean, bare metal. He’s already cut up both vehicles, opting to retain the Quattro’s upper unibody and replacing the bulkhead and floor pan with those sourced from the RS4. This way, he can keep the Quattro’s iconic body lines while maintaining the RS4’s wheelbase and suspension mounting points.Grafting the body of one car to another is no simple task, especially when you’re all on your own. Yet Zaglewski says it’s been a relative breeze, thanks to his prior experience and smart pre-planning.
“I must be honest—this project has been very well thought-out by myself right from the start, so there haven’t even any hard things or any issues, nor do I foresee any issues at all,” he tells me. “It’s all been straightforward because of preplanning on what will need to be done.
“A lot of people don’t have the technical insight into what needs to be done and how you need to approach this, and with my experience with classic cars—and quite a lot of modern cars—and my background in engineering, all of this is smooth sailing.”
The ’86 Ur-Quattro is narrower than the RS4, which means Zaglewski couldn’t just drop one part of the unibody onto the other, weld them together, and call it a day. There’s some significant engineering going on here to make the two bodies look like one.
“The Quattro’s [body] had to be widened by four inches at the bottom of the pillars,” he says. “So if you look at some of the videos or the photos on my Facebook or Instagram page, you will see that they have basically been widened by four inches to match up with the sills on the RS4.
“It sounds complicated, but when you know what you’re doing and where you need to bend stuff… it’s laborious, it takes time, but it’s been cool from a technical point of view.”
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Drivetrain-wise, Zaglewski plans to retain everything from the RS4, albeit with a supercharger slapped onto the 4.2-liter V-8. When it’s finished, he expects 650 horsepower—a stark increase over the RS4’s original 420 horses.
“It’s nothing mental,” he admits. ”It’s just a nice balance of a nice driving car with plenty of power, but nothing silly. Same with the drivability and the interior. You’re not going see [a] gutted interior [with] no air con. It will be a really nice, precision machine, which is very capable of cornering and acceleration. But nothing ridiculous.”
So When Will We See The Finished Product?
Zaglewski wants the Quattro to be fully ready to go by the time the 2027 Goodwood Festival of Speed rolls around, so he can exhibit the car in a rolling, dynamic environment. He expects to have it running and driving by next year’s Goodwood FoS, but wants a buffer year to make sure everything actually works.
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“With these sorts of projects, everything needs to be ironed out,” he says. “Everything needs to be perfect. You wouldn’t want the car to break down while racing up [the hill at Goodwood]. That’s just bad publicity. The car will be finished next year, and then all the things will need to be ironed out, and everything will need to be perfect. The custom interior, billet aluminum gauges, the stalks, the switches, all of those sorts of things. As I say, the devil is in the details.”
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As for demand, Zaglewski remains cautiously optimistic, despite the project gaining large followings on Instagram and Facebook.
“A lot of people are asking whether I will be building more [examples], what the costs will be, etc. Obviously, you need to take that with a pinch of salt. Interest online versus real interest, [those are] two completely different things. I’m not being too excited.”
If the finished product is as cool as these renders, I don’t think Zaglewski will have a problem selling a few to some wealthy Audi die-hards. Restomods are all the rage right now, and as he mentioned, no one’s given this level of attention to the ’80s Quattro. There’s a hole in the market ripe for the taking. Come 2027, it’ll likely be occupied.
Top photos: Mac Zaglewski
I’m finishing up a swap done this same way. A 1971 Travelall on a 2003 Tahoe floorpan, chassis etc. I guess I should have planned better, because there were definitely things that surprised me and were difficult for me to pull off. Gee, I wish I were as good as this guy, who has apparently planned for every eventuality and this is just a cake walk.
I’m sorry if you’re unhappy with the presentation of this. However – if it’s worth anything to you, I would be very curious to hear about the issues that you’ve had, what you’ve done to overcome them and perhaps help you with the ones that you still have, if you’d allow me.
As awful as it may sound, yes my project has been nothing but fun, enjoyment, a great challenge and as you called it a cake walk.
While the hilariously excellent sounding (or is it hilariously annoying to maintain and service? i forget) Audi 4.2 v8 wouldn’t be my first choice, it also isn’t my car.
People should be encouraged to dream big and exploit the tools they have available to them in order to achieve that fever goal. Long term, dogged determination is something that modern society has really turned up the flame to boil off into oblivion, and is something that isnt celebrated much it seems, even while being so connected these days.
Anyone doing custom metal fab, and using her or his hands to create something, anything even, should be met with praise in my small mind’s opinion. Not sure if dissenting opinions here are very helpful/warranted/needed? I just hope that the project doesn’t become vaporware, for his personal feelings of accomplishment’s sake.
I have an uncle who is a car fab garage master wizard, and creates his own tools and jigs so that he can chop/channel/shave/french etc. 50’s- 80’s cars and trucks and have fun with them. And he does it with a basically zero dollar budget and an opportunistic materials-collector vision. Are the cars my style? No, not really, but watching the process and how happy it made him was straight up COOL. And knowing that he made the car with care, vision, uniqueness and high quality makes me love his car creations so much more than i could have even if it was my favorite car platform ever.
To Each Their Own Nebuchadnezzar (TETON). i just made that up, but it kind of captures how i feel about my occasional big projects and this guys’ self-imposed albatross. Good for him and maybe even the future of enthusiast retromods!
We all, like what i feel this guy is doing, could use a bit of The Matrix’s (Matrices? ha) connection to the Nebuchadnezzar’s themes of prophecy, dreams, and the struggle for freedom.
Weld on, good sir, weld on.
Thank you Will for your comment!
Without being long winded and dragging on, the simple reason for using the RS4 V8 engine are the overall amazing properties of the full package/platform.
Once you think of using the full floor pan, engine, gearbox, engine management system along with all the mechanical, electrical and suspension parts you realise that you can make a very interesting car at a price that is much more reasonable than similar restomods.
I love this. Having dissected a few cars over the past 3 decades, i can understand that!
Sure, any one can take any car and technically do anything with it, but it still somehow has to make sense and fit within an attainable desire, applicable budget and available skillset(s). Sheetmetal skin shapeshift makes sense here. Good luck sir, and make sure to keep updating on progress with more cool photos!
Thanks again Will, appreciate it.
I certainly will keep everyone updated on social media channels – the car is now fitted with the engine, modified & functioning doors. The bodywork modelling in real life has also begun.
Cool, but a scary dream for somebody’s money.
The V8 is an ideal engine for something like this which will not see many miles.
It feels great and sounds like a V8.
Hopefully it will come apart easily for the planned and unplanned service intervals.
Retropower is actually building one of these. Best hour of youtube content each week if you are into high level car fabrication.
The hubris of this guy is very unappealing.
Ha yeah, if only I’d ever thought of planning ahead for my projects, they’d all have been 100% smooth sailing like this guys’ is! And it’s IMPOSSIBLE for him to come across an issue later in the project he has not foreseen!
You worded this sentiment much more politely than I was planning to do.
I’ll leave it at that.
I really do apologise for coming across as cocky and over the top confident in this article – that was very much not the plan!
I’m sure that you will understand though, that a very well pre planned project combined with experience doesn’t pose many risks from technical or metalwork point of view. Perhaps you could elaborate on what problems you think could arise and I would be very happy to answer any questions.
I will be supportive of any 5 cylinder Audi Build!
What?
Wait he’s ditching the 5 cylinder?
And throwing in one of Audi’s V8s with the cool/hilarious terrible timing chain on the BACK of the engine?
Fucking why?
If he drove an original UrQuattro and was underwhelmed, it must have had some issues and been running barely any boost. The 20V i5 Audi can EASILY be boosted to around 400hp without changing internals; if you do rods and pistons and crank work, sky is the limit. There are 5 cylinders with over 1000hp running around, and one still holds the world speed record for production bodied sedans.
I really do not understand the point of doing this much work, and NOT having a 5 cylinder. It’d be like if Singer did NOT use flat six engines; half of what makes the car so incredible is the 5 cylinder exhaust note and group B noises. Now it’s just a horribly complicated V8 in a cool looking car.
Good luck either way dude, but you’re fuckin’ up! Do exactly what you are doing w the I5 Turbos, and you have a fantastic idea.
Yeah, I have to say, putting in the V8 instead of the I5 doesn’t make much sense. But hey, his car, his choice I suppose.
It’s OK.
He won’t get that far.
Thanks for your comment. I love all your points, all indeed very valid.
In a nutshell, the point of using the 4.2 V8 is a very simple one – and that is the compatibility of using all underpinnings, including the floor pan, suspension, all electrics from RS4 B7, which if you delve deeper into it is by far the most compatible platform for such build.
Yes, you loose the sentimentality of the I5, but not much else I’m afraid. And on the other hand – do you think that if Audi had their hands on this engine, revving to 8.250rpm, and with amazing power delivery (especially turbo or supercharged), they wouldn’t have put it in the quattro originally?
Let me know your thoughts, and I will gladly answer as many questions as possible.
Holy crap, this thing looks incredible!
It’s an AI generated image. None of it is real, or has even been modeled in 3d yet. I think Autopian should take a stance on not covering AI generated concepts…
Huh, I was definitely fooled. The lack of sloppy droopy shapes or asymmetry, showing it from more than one angle… seems like they made a model?
Nope. Just took some shots of the original car, uploaded it, made AI slop, then took another photo a different angle of the original car, uploaded it, made AI slop, etc.
Boooooooo
Doing things Audi will never, ever do again (make fun, interesting, enthusiast-oriented cars).
Thank you!
Had this guy started a year ago, he could have been labeled “some genius…”
I’m always amazed how some people have so much drive to do these insane things. I hung some lights up on the porch this weekend and I think I’m going to call it quits for the year….
I have grand plans to LS swap my E39. But then I realize it takes me three days to mow the lawn.
Most of it is simply eating an elephant one bite at a time. Buddy and I just ran Sick Michigan Miles in a drag car we’ve been building for a decade. 1000mi, 4 race days (1 rained out), and the only thing that broke was the 10 year old radiator, despite making several 900+hp passes down the drag strip on a mostly stock 4.8 gen 3 LS. Just have to stay after it.
I’m gradually learning that kind of long-view determination, mostly because I finally rolled snake eyes and bought a car that’s been a little recalcitrant about the whole “start/run/get home” thing. Hopefully it won’t take a decade to sort out (not sure I can picture myself cherishing this thing in ten years), but it’s taught me that you get what you can give. Staying after it really is what it’s all about.
That’s what it takes. We could have run events years ago, but the car wasn’t nearly as sorted as we wanted. It’s a good thing we held off, considering prep for this event included new ladder bars due to the old ones nearly being ripped apart, a new 9″ center section and axles due to twisting them 10+ degrees, and $10k worth of transmission work to refresh/update the shift machine so it would last the road miles/racing. Driving 1000mi in a 9.15@145mph capable car is a daunting task, but 10 years of building and testing got us there with relatively minor problems.
How about we make a quad engine 20-wheel offroad schoolbus camper?
Will you write an article? I will draw it up in MS Paint and the project will be about as complete as this one.
Who shit in your cornflakes this morning? This is an awesome idea; the plan appears to be well thought out (those blueprints and renderings don’t look like amateur hour work to me!), the project is funded, and some significant progress has already been made. I think it’s great that they started reporting on it while the project is underway, and hopefully they’ll continue to expand upon it.
Dude I mean… the dude just uploaded pic of a quattro into an AI image generation service with some prompts like “futuristic restomod audi singer etc” and pooped it out. It’s not a 3d model or blueprints. The rendering is VERY much an AI generated image that took less than 5 minutes of effort.
Did you bother to look at his instagram? He’s done a ton of actual fabrication already. Having the final product be a rendering doesn’t change that
No, I looked at what was shown in this post. AI generated slop; the spoilers are different styles from the f3/4 view to rear view, etc.
So you’ve posted a half dozen comments in here shitting on the dude because you don’t like the spoiler, all while going out of your way to avoid looking at the real, in the metal work he’s already done. Got it.
Ah yes, a strawman where me pointing out AI slop is the same thing as saying I don’t like the spoiler.
Nice.
Thank you all for your comments. Tankdeer, for defending the project, and SoCoFoMoCo for looking further into it. I appreciate it.
ADDvanced – we all must understand and embrace the fact that AI is an excellent tool for certain applications and will only become better.
By using it in the way I have, I am indeed making a tiny contribution to making it better.
And having quickly come up with several rough ideas of what the car could look like, I can now focus my efforts on making a real life model (wire design structure is being made on the car right now), rather than spending valuable time in cad, designing something that would most likely look questionable in real life.
There are 1000 ambitious projects sitting unfinished on craigslist / marketplace right now.
Most are more complete than this.
I’m not ready to start celebrating the success of a project at “I had a cool thought.”
He could also call it the R-SQuattro.
(emphasis added)
While I appreciate his skills and confidence and genuinely hope all goes according to plan, this sort of statement tends to come back and bite people.
You’re certainly very correct in your statement!
However we all must understand that this project is a simple matter once broken down. I am not creating any new technology here at all, nor am I trying to revolutionise an Audi design that took them tens, if not hundreds of millions of Euros to finalise. This is not spaceX – this is a 20 year old car with some custom metalwork.
Certainly, there will be small issues to overcome when it comes to reassembly, metalwork design choices etc., but will the project die in it’s tracks because “the upper body won’t fit the lower structure”? Certainly not, all the big issues are taken care of – and they have had to be pre planned. Imagine taking money from a customer and making a phone call to explain something like above, just because it hasn’t been thought of it in the design stage.
Mac, please keep up the good work!
Whilst myself, like other enthusiasts would have liked the idea of Audi’s legendary “Big 5” to power this creation…
…As one who cut his teeth on the 5 cylinder-powered Ur quattro and it’s derivatives in the 1980’s, and now own 2 B7 RS4 models, I fully understand the reasoning behind the use of the BNS engine, and a super modern floorpan with it’s associated systems.
The B2 suspension is pretty long in the tooth by modern standards, so the more sophisticated multi-link B7 setup is the better choice here. With your planned boost, this will be some car once completed. ????