Audi TT RS Plus 2012 Review - International

So it now has another 15kW of power to lift it to 265kW, another 15Nm to jump to a V8-esque 465Nm and it’s an altogether quicker machine than it was.

In fact, the roadster version’s 4.2-second blast to 100km/h is firmly trending towards the supercar range, and the coupe is a tenth of a second quicker.

There are a few detailed changes to the front and rear styling of the TTRS Plus, though you’d need to look hard to spot them, and a bit more grip from a set of bigger boots, too. But is it coming to Australia? Audi can’t say yet. It would seem to be a lot of hard work for not very many sales.

PRICE AND EQUIPMENT

The TTRS Plus coupe is a bit cheaper, at €62,800, but you can have it for the bargain price of €60,650 if you want to forgo the seven-speed double-clutch gearbox and settle for a six-speed manual. If you can afford sixty-one, you can afford sixty-three, and it’s worth it.

You will look around for signs to justify your extra spending, but you won’t find much around the cabin. There’s a unique 'Plus' imprinted on the gear lever and the steering wheel and it’s also on the rocker panels. But that’s about it.

Fortunately, the TTRS was well-equipped in the first place, with a leather-bound, flat-bottomed steering wheel, cruise control, satnav, dual-zone climate control air con and everything else Audi had in the kitbox for the outgoing A3 and S3. That includes (in the cabrio) a roof system that runs up and down swiftly and easily at speeds up to 50km/h and a boot that is small, but offers a universally usable space.

There are more signs outside -- with unique 19-inch wheels (the TTRS gets 18-inch wheels and tyres as standard fit) and 255/35 ZR19 Michelins.

Look even closer and you might see (might!) an anthracite colour to the diamond-pattern grille or a pair of oval tips that look like they belong the exhaust pipes, but don’t. The exhaust pipes actually stop quite a way before the tips Audi has built in to the rear bodywork, but I’m sure at certain speeds some of the exhaust gases pass through the dark-chrome ovals. Bound to…

It’s so well equipped, by TT standards, that the only option (other than the Coupe/Roadster and double-clutch/manual decisions) are whether or not to fit the Audi Magnetic Damping system. Normally, we’d say yes. Here, we aren’t so sure.

MECHANICAL

It also scores the same chassis as the TTRS, too, which means the same heavily modified A3 architecture (which also means heavily modified Golf architecture).

To keep a remotely sporting feel to the front-drive chassis layout, the TT uses a lot of aluminium in the front end and keeps steel down the back. Not only is the aluminium strong, but keeping the steel pan in the rear means the weight naturally moves rearwards, at least compared to A3s and Golfs. It all means the TTRS Plus convertible weighs in at 1510kg, though the coupe is 60kg lighter.

This one is all-wheel drive, though it’s only all-wheel drive through a Haldex system, which means it’s really a part-time all-wheel-drive system, theoretically capable of sending torque between the front and rear axles in an instant.

Then there’s the gearbox, and we had the chance to sample only the seven-speed double-clutch unit -- S tronic in Audi-speak. It’s heavier than the six-speed manual, largely because it’s two gearboxes lurking inside one housing (and it carries an extra cog).

And what tricks have they played to evince another 15kW and 15Nm from the gorgeous straight five-pot? Well, they’ve not changed so much as a gudgeon pin, nor does the turbo run more boost or a bigger wheel. Instead, it’s all software mapping (and most of that has been done for the upcoming Q3 model with this engine).

The TTRS Plus now has 265kW at 5500-6700rpm and it also gets a 15Nm lift in torque, now at 465Nm at 1650-5400rpm (the sstandard TTRS' 450Nm peak arrived at 1600 and dropped away at 5300). Though torque is better distributed, power arrives 100rpm later and falls away 200rpm earlier than the stocker.

PACKAGING

The dash design has a classy, timeless feel to it. The vents aren’t the latest and greatest A3 gear (with a million moving bits and diffusers and spreaders and narrowers and twisters) but they work and the chromed rotation control is still logical and effective.

Ditto the ventilation controls. Updated for the A3, they soldier on here, but they display nothing like the urgent need for an upgrade of, say, the new SL Benz’s controls.

Even the seats are good, though the very tall have some issues with running out of cabin length when they slide them back on the rails. And there are only two of them.

There’s also a soft-top roof and it drops into a little cubby, which impinges on the boots space, but it’s a clean area and fits a surprising amount of luggage. Most of the time.

It’s even harder on those with pretensions to athleticism, like the TTRS.

When your body sits atop a mass-production chassis, your engine sits ahead of the front axles and you’ve had to contrive an engineering solution to make the back tyres turn, you’re going to struggle head-to-head on a winding road against the Porsche. It has, after all, a low-volume, sportscar-only chassis architecture and its engine sits just ahead of the rear axle, which means it doesn’t have to think very hard about driving the back wheels.

So the Porsche is the first one it has to contend with, and it’s not going to do it on dynamics alone.

But it’s not the only one, with BMW’s Z4, with a folding metal roof, is also a contender. It offers all manner of engines, from four to six cylinders (though not five…) and with 50:50 weight distribution, promises sharper handling.

Over Benz way, the SLK makes a reasonable fist of covering as many bases as it can and offending the fewest possible potential buyers. It, too, uses a folding metal roof and offers solidity of purpose to counter the flighty Porsche’s athleticism.

It fires up with a sharp crack and even the idle has a depth that promises muscularity. There’s also a Sport mode to open up a bypass flap to turn up the volume (and make the suspension a bit tauter), so you don’t have to be the only one listening to it.

Audi never officially launched the TTRS Plus, so we were forced to enter the Austria’s Kitzbuhl AlpenRallye to get our hands on one. I know. Weep for us.

And, we can tell you, the TTRS is fast and Audi is 100 per cent right. The TTRS Plus is faster. It punches hard and early. It punches from anywhere in the rev range, in any gear. It pulls from 1000rpm in sixth gear. It hammers properly from as little as 2000rpm and this guise has it feeling a little more linear than before.

The odd thing is that it never quite feels like a 4.2-second sprinter, because the engine is so crushingly strong everywhere across its breadth. It’s just difficult to understand its absolute sprinting ability because the mid-range strength means it never really needs it. You just stand on the noise and go.

But when you do convince yourself to stop and punch, it goes hard enough to make you realize it’s quicker than a TTRS but not quite so hard that it feels faster than an R8.

There’s no theatre to it and, snorting engine note apart, precious little drama. The Haldex hooks up easily in a straight line and the thing blasts away, with the S tronic ‘box cracking through each shift to make it even quicker than the manual.

Remapping the engine hasn’t harmed its smoothness or its penchant for belting out Three Tenors numbers every time it’s stirred. But it also hasn’t made it demonstratively more of an engine, as we’d expected.

Yet the engine is never in question and neither is the gearbox. The issue is the chassis. It’s an effective weapon in a straight line, for sure. Even in autobahn situations, the chassis feels happy enough with very fast corners to tackle at very high speeds. It’s never verging on the comfortable, though, which surprised us, given that other cars we’ve driven on magnetically variable dampers seemed to manage the old high-grip/good-comfort trick.
   
It’s a sign of ageing, but the ride quality of the TTRS Plus could go from firm to a little crashy when we clicked in the Sport mode. It could also go from firm to crashy when the road got lumpy, too.

That, and you always knew it was carrying big rubber, even when you were cruising at the speed limit, because the noise coming from under the back end of the car told us so. It had other cruising issues beyond the ride, too, because it lacks any kind of wind blocker, so it generates more buffeting whenever the roof is down than more modern designs.

But it falls away more sharply when you have to attack corners. It’s grippy enough for most and it’s not the sort of thing that’s ever going to trap someone into a life-threatening mistake. It’s just not capable of delivering the agility its looks and sounds promise.

Its biggest issue is that it always feels like a front-drive car, even in situations where you can feel the Haldex centre diff doing its best to push torque rearwards.

It starts on the way into corners, where enthusiasm generates understeer, regardless of your angle of attack. It’s a pure exercise in understeer management most of the time. It won’t bite, though, and it won’t snap into oversteer because it’s not capable of it. It will just run wide until it washes enough speed, then it will pull back towards the apex again.

It’s the same when you get onto the throttle. It’s happy enough on a static speed through a bend, but trying to push hard through or out the other side is an invitation for the front tyres to break out in song.

It’s a weight-distribution issue exacerbated by a suspension travel issue and a diff issue. This much power and torque needs a more-permanent all-paw system than the one the TTRS Plus actually has, though the Haldex fizzes and whizzes away manfully. The lack of compliance (it’s 15mm lower than a stock TT) doesn’t help, either, with the car taking a couple of metres to recover its equilibrium after each mid-corner bump strike.

Even the open car is rigid enough, though, and there’s no scuttle shake to speak of and you never feel as though the chassis is struggling to resist the twisting forces from the power. It’s more that it’s struggling to utilize it all at the same time.

There is value in a TTRS, if only to get access to one of the finest engines on sale today. You can get that engine in the RS3 now (well, you can if you didn’t live in Australia) and you will soon get it in a Q3, too. It might be worth saving your pennies for that.

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