Porsche took Audi’s twenty-valve 2.2L I5 and beefed it up to handle more boost, with a specially ground camshaft and a Bosch ECU. The long engine barely fits under the hood, what with the larger intercooler and associated plumbing for the turbocharger, so there’s an offset radiator and fan.

While they were at it, Porsche also bolted on massive brakes, and Stevenson’s machine has even more impressive stoppers, fitted as it is with the optional 911 Turbo fronts. External clues to just how fast this Audi was include 911 turn signals, wing mirrors, cup-style wheels, and a long reflector on the back hatch to mirror the design of the 964 Carrera. There’re also other, hidden tweaks, such as an extra-thin aluminum plate to cover the spare tire because the wheel was wider than usual.

1994 Audi RS2 engine bay 1994 Audi RS2
1994 Audi RS2 engine bay, . Click image to enlarge

The cost for all these go-fast goodies was simply astronomical. Stevenson has an original price sheet and, converting from Deutschmarks and adjusting for inflation, his RS2 would have cost about $120,000. When he first saw one as a kid on a trip to Europe, lighting its afterburners out of a parking lot, he knew he had to have one. Thanks to Canadian import laws, some persistence, and a spouse who clearly gets her husband’s affinity for hot Audis, Stevenson now has his dream car.

At the beginning, however, it wasn’t quite the dream he imagined. Having sat for some time, there were leaks to be fixed, and when he got it back home to Canada via ship to Montreal and rail across the prairies, there was all sorts of other fiddling to be done. Happily, Stevenson is an engineer, working with a fuel-cell company in Burnaby partnered with Ford and Mercedes, and thus has both the skill and patience required to keep a very rare car with very rare and expensive parts on the road. Things are made slightly easier by the fact that the extreme rarity of the RS2 makes it eligible for BC collector plates, keeping at least the cost of insurance down.

But never mind the practical nonsense – this thing’s a rocket! You can almost feel that original ultra-capable spirit of the 959 working away underneath the sheet metal, even if the two are only related by the womb in which they were birthed. The RS2 has a 0–50 km/h holeshot that’ll famously take out a McLaren F1 or a contemporary Formula One car, but the roll-on acceleration is very strong once the revs climb past 4,000 rpm.

1994 Audi RS2 1994 Audi RS2
1994 Audi RS2. Click image to enlarge

It’s no slavering monster when that happens, just a deft and grippy machine that’d put you in mind of a previous-generation Golf R with a third more horsepower. It feels just like a grown-up STI, solid and planted, and surely capable of its stated 270 km/h top speed. And you could do that speed with a case full of Henkell Trocken in the back, plus a Rottweiler. Arguably, though Subaru had a hatchback version of their WRX before this, the RS2 kicked off the trend for hot Euro wagons, and the RS line it founded has had a high-velocity cargo hauler in the lineup ever since.

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