Experience The HSR Type 859 a Modern Group B Rally Icon

The HSR Type 859 looks like a proper Sport Quattro: the short silhouette, the pumped arches, the shape that looks tense and ready for action. Then there are the details to consider: carbon-fibre panels, a modern five-cylinder turbo engine. Even better HSR as built them to be driven and driven hard.

Thw original Audi Sport Quattro was a homologation weapon for Group B. A shortened wheelbase for sharpen responses, to keep Audi at the sharp end as the rally formula escalated. Later, Pikes Peak called and Walter Röhrl’s 1987 record run in the S1 E2, a sub-11-minute blast that gave the car a second, life far beyond the forests of Europe.

Keeping the shape that started it all

HSR Manufaktur has not tried to reinvent the Sport Quattro. The Type 859 keeps the essence that made the original so distinct: the compact stance and the aggressive, almost compressed proportions that came from the shortened wheelbase. However, HSR has added 200 mm to the wheelbase, helping to alleviate some of the twitchiness of the original.

The company has wrapped that idea in carbon-fibre bodywork and a modern spaceframe platform. This combination is the clearest sign this is a restomod for people who actually want to drive. The Type 859 uses contemporary structural thinking, which means better rigidity, better safety, and a more stable base for modern suspension and drivetrain.

Type 859 at a glance

Carbon fibre body
Modern spaceframe
More than 375 kW (500 hp) from an Audi 5-cylinder turbo engine
Manual gearbox
Mechanical all-wheel drive
1 200-1 300 kg target mass
Only 84 planned

A five-cylinder

The heart of the Type 859 is the bit that will sell it to the faithful. HSR has gone with a modernized 2,5-litre 20V five-cylinder engine tuned to deliver more than 375 kW. The rebuilt engine features forged internals and dry-sump lubrication. If you ask nicely HSR will ramp up power to 441 kW (600 hp) This places the car in the same space as the wildest Group B and hillclimb machines.

The original Sport Quattro built its legend on the old Audi formula: turbocharged five-cylinder noise, all-wheel drive traction. In road trim, the homologation car was quick. In full works form, especially in E2 and Pikes Peak specification, it became a monster. The Type 859 tries to capture that character with modern hardware that should make the power easier to use and far more reliable than anything Audi could have offered in 1984.

HSR also refuses the obvious shortcut of a paddleshift setup. The car gets a manual gearbox, with an exposed shift pattem. The mechanical all-wheel-drive system has a rear-drive bias. Modern engine management, direct injection, and variable valve timing keep the package usable on the road.

HSR says the Type 859 is daily usable, with air conditioning, modern electronics, and wireless CarPlay and Android Auto. Active suspension system with adjustable ride height. This allows you to transform the car’s character at the touch of a button.

Why the original still sets hearts racing

The Sport Quattro was brought in for late 1984 as the shortened, harder-edged evolution of the original, built around the homologation rules that demanded 200 road cars. Its competition career was brief, but the reputation it left behind was enough to last for decades.

Rally fans remember the names attached to it. Blomqvist, Mikkola, Mouton, and Walter Röhrl all carried some version of the car. The car also became part of the wider Group B myth, the period when it seemed rallying lost its mind.

Then came Pikes Peak, where Audi stretched the same idea into a new kind of spectacle. Mouton won there in 1984 and 1985, Bobby Unser in 1986, and Röhrl in 1987 delivered the famous record run in 10 min 47,85 seconds. That was the first sub-11-minute climb, and it sealed the Sport Quattro’s status as more than a rally machine.

For anyone who grew up on Group B footage, Pikes Peak clips, and the idea that Audi once built rally cars with the social subtlety of a sledgehammer, this is the modern fantasy made concrete.