06:26AM - 12.11.'13
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News Source: autoblog.com
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For the last few years, Audi has been publicly toying with building a successor to its Ur-Quattro, a model still glowing in a gritty patina of motorsports glory decades after it left the scene. If anything, the rally car's halo has burned brighter as Audi has matured into a world luxury superpower. Since 2010, the German automaker has shown two different concept cars that attempted to re-bottle the legend's lightning, and it's still trying to figure out whether to market a production model. Despite that conundrum (and not to take anything away from the seminal Ur-Quattro), it's easy to argue that there are two other cars much more important to Audi's rise from its '80s ashes: the original TT and the B5-generation A4 and its high-performance variants. The TT thrust Audi into the vanguard of automotive styling while firmly establishing the Volkswagen Group as masters of platform development (the same basic architecture and powertrain guts were employed in a dizzying array of models, from the Golf, Jetta and New Beetle to a number of Škoda products). This unprecedented, flexible building-block approach to new model development has since become the standard of the industry. In the case of its B5 cars, the A4, S4 and RS4 put Audi back on the radar of rival German automakers, and more importantly, they grew the Four Rings' sales by leaps and bounds while reminding the world that all-wheel drive needn't only benefit hardcore performance cars and utility vehicles. Fast-forward to today, and the A4 has established itself as the bedrock of Audi's lineup, but it's also grown over its four generations to become substantially larger, heavier and costlier than the model that debuted back in 1996 America. That's created a vacuum at the bottom of the range that the company has inadequately addressed – until now. Audi's latest A3 generation first debuted in hatchback form at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, but in a sign of our North American market's growing importance to the brand, Audi commissioned its first A3 sedan and released it at the New York Auto Show in March along with the 2015 S3 Sedan seen here. We still have yet to drive the bog-standard A3 saloon, but that's fine by us, as Audi just flipped us the keys to its higher-performance variant, the S3, on the seaside mountain roads of Monaco. For those still enamored with the B5 S4 like we are, this S3 amounts to nothing less than its spiritual successor – even if the alphanumerics on the decklid don't line up. Their numbers are startlingly similar: the original rode atop a 103-inch wheelbase, spanned 176.5 inches long, 68.2 inches wide and stood 55 inches tall. It weighed in at around 3,400 pounds. The 2015 S3 is an inch shorter at 175.5 inches, yet at 70.7 inches, it's more than two inches wider. Its wheelbase is an iota more at 103.4 inches and its overall height is marginally taller at 55.7, yet its curb weight is slightly lighter at a quoted 3,318 pounds. In other words, it's pretty darn close. The biggest numerical departures between the S4 and this new S3 occurs under their hoods – the B5 employed a 2.7-liter, biturbo V6 that yielded 250 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque in US trim. The new S3? It receives a 2.0-liter turbocharged and direct-injected four-cylinder. That's the same size and configuration as larger-engined A3 sedans, but unlike those lesser models, the S3 employs a higher-pressure turbo and larger intercooler, along with a unique aluminum-silicon alloy cylinder head capping strengthened internals that include special pistons, camshafts, con-rods, crankshaft bearings, exhaust valves and valve seats. Those changes are expected to net about 290 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque by the time the S3 makes it Stateside (our European test car is rated at 300 hp with an identical torque figure). It's officially okay to get excited now. Like the new seventh-generation Golf and GTI, the S3 rides atop Volkswagen's pivotal new MQB modular compact architecture, as does the S3 Sportback that European correspondent Matt Davis told you about in May. Yet the sedan and the hatchback are actually quite different – the trunked model has a 1.4-inch broader wheelbase and is eight inches longer overall. Those changes help give the S3 sedan much more natural three-box proportions, but they also mean that the sum total of exterior parts shared with the liftback could fit in a shopping cart – headlamps, side mirrors, door handles and part of the single-frame grille are the only common bits. Speaking of proportions, the S3 has some nice ones – it looks like a 7/8ths version of the current S4, but with a few differences that actually add some visual aggression, particularly around the front fascia. There's little new ground broken here, but the S3 is handsome, athletic and premium looking, particularly with our test car's 19-inch wheels. Company officials are quick to point out that the S3 is not an attempt at a four-door coupe shape like that of the S3's main rival, the Mercedes-Benz CLA – Audi's aim was to preserve utility and rear seat space. |
