words: Randy Nelson, photos: Troy Sicotte
Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in the Q4_2023 issue of quattro Magazine. If you would like to subscribe to quattro Magazine, please join Audi Club here.
I have always been fascinated with cars beginning at age five or six when I collected, painted and raced a fleet of little white-wheeled plastic cereal box cars around the living room, using the walls for high-speed banking of course. My bicycles were painted to replicate local stock cars. I taped the annual new car edition cover of Life Magazine on my wall to memorize. I stapled pictures of the Corvair convertible I wanted the family to buy on my parent’s bedroom ceiling. Subtle.
When I was almost 16, my dad brought home a $600 1959 MGA 1600, the 2-seater of my dreams. It had been rear ended, so the back was flat as a taxicab sign, as if it were made for the racing stripe that I applied right over it. A Bugeye Sprite followed with 90-degree corners at 45mph. I didn’t know it, but Massive Fun With Your Butt 6 inches Off The Ground, would become part of my circle of life.
I finally retired and while driving kept hearing mysterious oooing and awwing noises every time I passed an Audi. And I was the only one in the car! I found myself sneaking through Audi dealer lots and reading every Audi word I could possibly find. I saw my very first live A5 Sportback,
After buying the Sportback, I discovered Audi Club Arizona and found a new life. And then members Brian and Dan introduced me to the design heaven that is the Audi TT Mk1. Cue the heavenly music here!
I searched for a V6 TT coupe for almost five years, never matching my now lack of both big money and any discernable mechanical skills. I had even sheepishly admitted to my tolerant wife that I had given up the search.
Then comes a post that caught my eye from our Arizona Chapter forever friend, Leanne Kopras, showing what appeared to be TT perfection being offered for sale by ex-ACNA Board President, Troy Sicotte, two magic words for someone I could trust.
I was on the phone exactly 24 seconds later, obtaining sufficient information from Leanne to already know I was going to buy it. I called Troy and he graciously accepted my offer. Soon the car was on an enclosed truck from Washington State to become an Arizona car.
Troy sorted this 2004 car as if it were made for me – the exterior remains completely stock for that year with the exception of highly polished “Fat Five” wheels. But underneath the unusual Dolomite Gray Pearl exterior sports a United Motorsports Combo Engine / DSG Transmission tune fed by a carbon fiber Gruppe M cold air intake. Troy also added H&R Street Performance SS Coilovers, ECS Tuning spacers, an H&R rear sway bar, Techtonics Race Cats and more. Details like new dashboard knobs, stock exhaust tips replacing the Techtonic tips and red powder coated engine highlights to match the spark plug tips complete what I look at in the garage last thing every night. Massive Fun With Your Butt 6 Inches Off The Ground.
An Audi TT Mk1 like this one is not ownership. This is a caretaker situation until it is bestowed upon the next human.
One last note: I am a stinking 75 year old, but a TT Mk1 injection surely contains a superior Benjamin Button chemical derivative. Pronounced “Wahoooo!!”
