Let’s start with the obvious point that the S3 you’re looking at here has its steering wheel on the wrong side and wears a license plate that looks like an eye chart for myopic pensioners. That’s because, although the S3 doesn’t touch down stateside until September, it’s already on sale in England. So we sourced one in the U.K. and arranged to infiltrate a former U.S. airbase to record performance numbers, then new sports car did a whistle-stop tour of ridiculously quaint Shakespearean burgs with names like Kibworth Harcourt and Husbands Bosworth to see which one offers the best black pudding. If you don’t know what that is, don’t ask.
You already know the basics: The S3 is the beefy version of the transverse-engined A3 sedan, sharing the Golf’s MQB platform and packing the most powerful current iteration of Volkswagen’s familiar EA888 2.0-liter four. Audi car That means 292 horsepower, basically the same spec as the forthcoming Golf R. Although Europe also gets both three- and five-door-hatchback versions of the S3, only the sedan will cross the Atlantic. And although Europeans are helping to save the manuals with a standard six-speed stick, all U.S. versions will have the six-speed S tronic dual-clutch automatic that’s fitted to our test new cars.
The looks are Audi-familiar. Despite carrying its engine sideways and being almost 10 inches shorter than an S4, the S3 looks close enough to its sibling that it could probably use its driver’s license as a fake ID. The baby sedan new hatchback cars origins are only obvious in the relative shortness of its trunklid. With a chunky body kit, quad exhaust outlets, and the silver mirror surrounds that Audi reserves for S and RS models, it’s a handsome little thing—and a measure more subtle than the Mercedes CLA45 AMG. Whether or not you think that’s a plus probably depends on how high you wear your pants. Inside, the cabin is well finished and well equipped, although apart from a flat-bottomed steering wheel and gray instruments (with an ’80s-style digital boost gauge), it feels very similar to the standard A3 sedan motorsia.com.
