Audi quattro 20 valve Mk2, Nordic Blue Metallic, 1990

Audi were not the first to make a four-wheel-drive sports coupé, but crucially, they were the first to make one in volume and in doing so totally rewrote the performance car handbook. It was so obviously better in nearly every way that rival car makers scrambled to catch up and it is due to the quattro that so many cars now use four-wheel-drive. Launched in 1980 it remained available for 11 years and, such was the car’s significance, that Audi substantially updated what was by then an outmoded but iconic car and produced the fastest and most potent version during its last two years of production, the legendary quattro 20 Valve.