Abt Sportsline
Encyclopedia
Kempten im Allgäu
Kempten is the largest town in Allgäu, a region in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. The population was ca 61,000 in 2006. The area was possibly settled originally by Celts, but was later overtaken by the Romans, who called the town Cambodunum...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Abt mainly deals with Audi
Audi
Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer, from supermini to crossover SUVs in various body styles and price ranges that are marketed under the Audi brand , positioned as the premium brand within the Volkswagen Group....
, and the related primary Volkswagen Group
Volkswagen Group
Volkswagen Group is a German multinational automobile manufacturing group. , Volkswagen was ranked as the world’s third largest motor vehicle manufacturer and Europe's largest....
brands - Volkswagen
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
, Škoda
Škoda Auto
Škoda Auto , more commonly known as Škoda, is an automobile manufacturer based in the Czech Republic. Škoda became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group in 2000, positioned as the entry brand to the group...
, and SEAT
SEAT
SEAT, S.A. is a Spanish automobile manufacturer founded on May 9, 1950 by the Instituto Nacional de Industria , a state-owned industrial holding company....
.
History
Johann Abt (born December 1935), who continued a horseshoeing tradition of his family with motor cars, was a motorcycling and hillclimbingHillclimbing
Hillclimbing is a branch of motorsport in which drivers compete against the clock to complete an uphill course....
racer for Abarth
Abarth
Abarth is an Italian racing car maker founded by Austrian-Italian Carlo Abarth and Italian Armando Scagliarini in Turin in 1949. Its logo depicts a stylized scorpion on a red and yellow background.- History :...
factory team until 1970. He later entered cars with his own team, winning the "Trophée de l’Avenir“ and other series.
Since the death of their father Johann in 2003, the company with 100 employees has been run by the brothers Hans-Jürgen Abt (born 1962, Managing Director) and Christian Abt
Christian Abt
Christian Abt is a race car driver born in Kempten, Germany, into a family of amateur race drivers and car dealers.His elder brother Hans-Jürgen Abt runs the Abt Sportsline Audi racing teams as well as their tuning company for Audi and Volkswagen.Christian Abt started his career in motocross and...
who is also a race car driver.
After Christian Abt won the German STW Supertouring
Supertouring
Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a motor racing Touring Cars category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Formula" created for the British Touring Car Championship in 1990...
championship title in 1999 with an Audi A4
Audi A4
The first generation Audi A4 debuted in 1994, with production starting November 1994. It was built on the Volkswagen Group B5 platform, which it shared with the fourth generation Volkswagen Passat . It had a front-mounted longitudinal engine and front-wheel drive...
, a quick decision was made to join the new Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters
The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters is a touring car racing series based in Germany, but also with rounds elsewhere in Europe....
. The new Abt-Audi TT
Audi TT
The Audi TT is a two-door sports car manufactured by the German automaker and Volkswagen Group subsidiary Audi since 1998.The Audi TT has been produced in two generations. Both generations have been available in two car body styles; as a 2+2 Coupé, or two-seater Roadster...
-R initially showed their lack of development time, but in 2002 the team celebrated the biggest success in the company’s history with Laurent Aïello
Laurent Aïello
Laurent Aïello is a race car driver.In 1990 he won the Monaco Grand Prix Formula Three support race. His two seasons in International Formula 3000 were not successful however, and though he won the French Formula Three Championship. 2005 was his final competitive season...
’s title in the DTM.
In the 2003 DTM season, Abt Sportsline gave their 19-year-old apprentice Peter Terting
Peter Terting
Peter Terting is a German auto racing driver, born on February 19, 1984 in Kempten. He won the Volkswagen Lupo Cup in 2002, earning him a DTM drive for Abt Sportsline in 2003, although this proved to be too big a step up, and the teenager struggled to be competitive.After winning the 2004 German...
the opportunity to drive one of their 470 hp cars, after the rookie
Rookie
Rookie is a term for a person who is in his or her first year of play of their sport or has little or no professional experience. The term also has the more general meaning of anyone new to a profession, training or activity Rookie is a term for a person who is in his or her first year of play of...
had won the ADAC
ADAC
The ADAC is Germany's and Europe's largest automobile club, with more than 17 million members in June 2010. It was founded on May 24, 1903 as "Deutsche Motorradfahrer-Vereinigung" and was renamed in 1911...
VW Lupo
Volkswagen Lupo
The Lupo is a city car manufactured by German automaker Volkswagen from 1998 to 2005.-Model history:The Lupo was introduced in 1998 to fill a gap at the bottom of the VW model range caused by the increasing size and weight of the VW Polo. Rivals included the Ford Ka, the Opel/Vauxhall Agila and...
Cup series title in 2002. The young man could not really cope with the pressure in the professional competitions, though, but the move by Abt is remarkable anyway.
Aftermarket
Abt has taken much of their racing knowledge and adapted it for the street, making the company a successful tuner for the full Volkswagen GroupVolkswagen Group
Volkswagen Group is a German multinational automobile manufacturing group. , Volkswagen was ranked as the world’s third largest motor vehicle manufacturer and Europe's largest....
line of products (including Audi and SEAT).
Notable cars
- AS4-R - A highly modified B7 A4Audi A4The first generation Audi A4 debuted in 1994, with production starting November 1994. It was built on the Volkswagen Group B5 platform, which it shared with the fourth generation Volkswagen Passat . It had a front-mounted longitudinal engine and front-wheel drive...
Avant, the ASR-R makes use of the bi-turboTwin-turboTwin-turbo refers to a turbocharged engine, in which two turbochargers compress the intake charge. There are two commonly used twin turbo configurations: parallel twin-turbo and sequential twin-turbo...
2.7L V6V6 engineA V6 engine is a V engine with six cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of three cylinders, usually set at either a right angle or an acute angle to each other, with all six pistons driving a common crankshaft...
to produce 480 hp at 6800 rpm, and 417 ft.lbf of torque at 3300 rpm! Modified Luxury & Exotics magazine called the AS4-R, "a grocery getter that delivers," and said it, "handles like a toy..." - TT-R - A supercharged second generation V6 Audi TTAudi TTThe Audi TT is a two-door sports car manufactured by the German automaker and Volkswagen Group subsidiary Audi since 1998.The Audi TT has been produced in two generations. Both generations have been available in two car body styles; as a 2+2 Coupé, or two-seater Roadster...
. - R8-R - Not yet released ABT's R8 will feature a superchargerSuperchargerA supercharger is an air compressor used for forced induction of an internal combustion engine.The greater mass flow-rate provides more oxygen to support combustion than would be available in a naturally aspirated engine, which allows more fuel to be burned and more work to be done per cycle,...
mated to Audi's 4.2L V8V8 engineA V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of four cylinders, in most cases set at a right angle to each other but sometimes at a narrower angle, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft....
for a total horsepower output of 530 hp. - R8 GT R - A highly modified version of the Audi R8 V10 turning it into what Abt Sportsline calls a "motorsport champion for the road." The Abt R8 GT R features a tuned version of the 5.2-liter V10 engine, boosting the power from 525 hp to 620 hp. Many new exterior parts are made from carbon fiber, dropping the car's weight by 220 lb (99.8 kg). The interior features many modifications to make it more like a race car, including racing seats, a fire extinguisher, a 4-point seat belt, a rollover bar, and new steering wheel. Various other modifications make this a high performance road-legal race car.