Finally finished the new front end on my A4.

Back in late July, I finally tackled a long sought after project of completely altering the front fascia of my A4.  That’s fancy car talk for, “I really wanted to change up them grilles!”

Okay, here’s the deal.  Audi offered a special appearance package for the A4 from ‘04 - ‘05 called the Ultrasport. It was simply different body pieces and some interior enhancements.  Bottom line, it looks 1000x better than than the standard A4.  Most would never know the difference but if you put em side by side… totally different story.

So if you’re a guy like me who loves this stuff, it makes a massive difference.  Now it’s not that I’ve not tried to procure an Ultrasport.  I’ve tried no less than ten separate occasions to buy one.  But they’re rare, elusive and for some strange reason often beaten to a pulp.  Tragedy like no other.  

Sadly, I only have the plain ole A4 which needed some love.  That and I always wanted to see if I could pull this off.

Here’s how she started…  not bad, just kinda meh.  We’ll use this for a point of reference.  Sad emo A4 is covered in rain and sad.  Even kinda looks depressed.  Eeesh, gotta fix that.

Basically, the plan was to remove the lower portion of the bumper and graft another piece on to the existing upper portion.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Could I actually pull this off?  Maybe!

Thankfully, this has been done many times before by fellas like me so there were plenty of DIYs online for me to follow.  Otherwise, well, who knows how this would have turned out?  

First, I had to prep and then paint the lower on my trusty Ping-Pong-Table-Paint-Booth.  This piece would normally bolt up to the standard upper bumper found on an Ultrasport A4.

Just some basic scuffing was all that’s necessary to adequately prep the plastic.

As you can see, I follow instructions quite well.  Perhaps a little too well.  Side note, that spray gun style attachment for regular spray cans has got to be one of the best $7 I’ve ever spent.  Found on Amazon on your local hardware / home improvement store of choice.  Even coats for the win. 

On my car, the ‘lowers’ as they’re called are referred to as ‘unpainted’ but in actuality they are painted this smoke gray color.  This is fortunate cause if they weren’t, then I’d have to take this piece to a body shop and have it color matched and sprayed.  But since there’s no clear coat required with this Bumper Coater, one can prep and paint at will.  Fun trivia, this is the same color gray that Ford uses on all it’s gray bumpers.  Gripping stuff.  

After a few coats, it started lookin pretty damn good.  But we’ll see about a match when it’s attached.  Oh yeah, now I gotta attach the damn thing.  Oh boy.

At this point I realized here was no turning back.  But as complex as it looks, much to my surprise, removing the headlights, fog lamps and even the whole bumper was no more complex than assembling Ikea furniture.  Seriously. (Thanks again for the help Chas.) Once I had the bumper off, it was time to fire up the cutting tool.  Wait, the what??

And yes, I wear batting gloves when I work.  They fit really well and keep me from slicing my paws open.  I’m a bleeder. 

Next came the downright frightening task of cutting away sections of the actual bumper cover in order to accommodate the new piece.  It’s a fairly close match, but a sizable amount of trimming is required.

Look closely.  Notice the entire lower section is now gone?  

Thankfully, finally got it to fit!

After securing the new ‘lower’ with bolts and strategicly placed 50 lb test zip ties, it took all of 10 minutes to get it back on the car.  And the paint was perfect match!

Prepping and painting it took longer than the trimming and assembly.  Crazy.

So, here’s some recent pics.  I added new grilles on the top, center and sides.  The upper grille is from an Audi S4 as is the lower grille (which was cut to fit the new Ultrasport Lower).  And since I’ve combined pieces from both the Ultrasport A4 and the S4, I’ve dubbed this look… S4ltrasport.  Rad.