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NEWS
GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Audi Q3 RS
Five-pot firepower for Q3 a pioneering effort in small SUVsGermany’s in-house tuner wars look set to reach new heights at the Geneva Motor Show with Audi’s RS Q3.
With the Quattro division cramming its turbocharged, in-line, five-cylinder engine into Audi’s smallest SUV, Germany’s Big Three premium makers look to have found yet another stage to battle on.
Already, Audi’s Quattro, BMW’s M and Mercedes-Benz’s AMG slug it out everywhere from limousines to hatchbacks, but small SUVs have been virgin territory. Until now.
The RS Q3 will change all of that, though. On sale in Germany from September this year, the RS Q3 will be fast enough to streak to 100km/h in 5.5 seconds and will be electronically limited to 250km/h.
The mini powerhouse is stuffed full of 228kW (310hp) of the same in-line five-cylinder engine that Quattro developed for its TT RS and the discontinued RS3 Sportback.
It cranks out peak power in a plateau from 5200rpm to 6700rpm, and the 2480cc engine backs that up with oodles of low-end performance thanks to 420Nm of torque from 1500 to 5200rpm. No holes in that performance curve, then.
Not only will the 1730kg RS Q3 be fast in a straight line, but it will only use 8.8 litres/100km with an emissions figure of 206 grams of CO2/km.
“The RS Q3 transfers the performance philosophy of Audi to the compact SUV segment, thereby creating a new performance class,” Quattro GmbH Managing Director, Franciscus van Meel, insisted.
The €54,600 SUV (in Germany) will only be available with seven-speed dual-clutch S Tronic transmission, it will have launch control and this will be the first application of this engine with Start-Stop technology.
The three-shaft transmission will be offered with Sport, Comfort, Automatic and Manual modes, with manual shifting done via a console-mounted shift lever (that, inevitably at Audi, works the “wrong” way) or the more intuitive steering wheel-mounted paddles.
Based around Quattro’s 2012 China Auto Show concept, the RS Q3 will be 25mm longer than the standard Q3, thanks partly to its twin exhaust tips (which contain “Get Loud” flaps) and partly due to its reprofiled front splitter. This includes two vertical brake air intakes at the extreme corners and the word “quattro” moulded into the bottom of the main air intake.
Quattro’s efforts to sharpen up its handling mean it’s also 25mm lower and the kinematics of the Q3’s oft-lauded four-link rear suspension have also been upgraded.
While there have been tweaks to the electro-mechanical steering, it’s the brakes that will stand out. The front anchors get Audi’s wave-form steel discs, which are 365mm in diameter with cross-drills and ventilation, and promise stupendous power from eight-piston front calipers.
The RS Q3 won’t get Quattro’s traditionally huge wheelarch blisters, but it will get a larger roof spoiler and a skid-control system that can be turned off completely for more enthusiastic drivers.
The interior has also been heavily revised, with 14 Bose speakers inside, unique leather trim and stitching, a flat-bottomed steering wheel, grey dials and heavier seat bolstering.
The MMI screen has had its codes rewritten to let the driver check the oil temperature and the turbo boost pressure, and it also has a built-in lap timer.
There's no compromising the standard Q3’s practicality simply to deliver the performance, either, with the RS version boasting 356 litres of standard luggage space or 1261 litres with the rear seats folded flat.
Its arrival is also sure to spark yet another close fight between AMG, M and Quattro and, after the RS7, the RS6 and the RS5 Cabriolet, it marks the fourth new RS model from Quattro to enter production in 2013.
With Quattro sitting on the sidelines of the hot hatch market after the end of the RS3 Sportback’s production run, AMG has whipped in with its A45 AMG. Only M, with its 1-Series M Coupe, has a contender of that size, though it’s a two-door coupe and is less practical than AMG’s five-door hatch. Quattro will wait until next year at the earliest to show its RS version of the current A3.
BMW has already shown its CLS63 AMG-rivaling swoopy coupe, the M6 GranCoupe, while Audi’s RS7 Sportback debuted in January’s Detroit Motor Show, making this one of the most hotly contested market niches on the planet.
Similarly, Audi’s RS6 Avant will be fighting toe-to-toe with the M5 and the more-expensive E63 AMG. Both M and AMG have a contender in larger SUVs, though Audi is the first to deliver a hotshot small SUV.
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Written byMichael Taylor
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