they have started this habbit since 1985/6. Any of them came here, as (as far i know) in 1986 they have sold the last urq in states?
TIA

And that is no. I thought the 5000's were the only ones that were galvanized and that didnt start until 1986.

I could be wrong, as this is an educated guess from what I think I know :)

During the transition from plain to galvanized sheet steel use in the mid-80's for the bigger cars, it's possible that there was a trial run of galvanized panels for urQ's - when I worked for a *ahem* Generous Manufacturer as a summer student building gas tanks (and brake pedals!) for a summer, we made a trial run of stainless tanks (the regular ones had about 5 coatings in the inside) - I believe in total there were maybe 20 or so - the machines couldn't pick up the stainless sheets (too much oil) so we had to load the stamping machines by hand.....scary! If Audi produced them, though, it would be unlikely that the urQ panels got the "full treatment", as the use of galvanized sheet steel required different welding techniques (possibly sandblasting off the areas to be spot welded, etc.) and after the sheet was stamped, they treated the edge to fold over the torn edges of galvanizing to seal the cut edge - I believe that was done as a part of the stamping so it would have been a real tooling issue to do a one-off run.
It's also possible that some sheet steel destined for the Type 44's ended up being loaded into the wrong press.....ask anybody who works at a brewery about the "purity" of a final product where they make more than one beer.
Cheers!

Pretty cool to hear of this stuff though. All the little stories and tidbits we find out from eachother is really neat.

I have a USA salesman's pocket booklet from 1985. It's sort of a little cheat-sheet with all the quattro facts and figures in it. One of the items is a "6-year anti-corrosion warranty". It would be hard to believe they could offer that without galvanized panels?

unless the car is stored under salt water for 6 years, that is. The factory would have seam sealed, undercoated and wax-oiled to keep the rust from perforating the panels. Can't remember the warranty that was offered with the Type 44's....but it was something like 10 or 12 years or something nuts.
Cheers!

no ur quattro (US or Euro) was ever 100% galvanized like the other Audis from the late '80's until the present.