New trademark hints at jacked-up Audi A3 Allstreet for Oz

Audi Australia could be planning to add a high-riding Audi A3 to its local line-up in the coming months, based on a fresh trademark application for the ‘allstreet’ nameplate we discovered today.

Filed with IP Australia on November 4 but only designated ‘received’ as of March 31, the new application was submitted under classes nine (multimedia), 12 (vehicles), 20 (emblems) and 28 (merchandise) and follows a string of spy shots out of the Arctic Circle showing a raised albeit disguised A3 hatch undergoing winter testing.

The intriguing part is that Audi already offers an A3-based SUV in the form of the Audi Q3.

This new Audi A3 Allstreet then should sit between the hatch and SUV offerings in a sort of happy middle ground for those who want some extra ground clearance without necessarily stepping up to a full-blown SUV.

The German brand has form here as well; the Audi A4 Allroad is a raised and more versatile version of the established Audi A4 Avant.

More importantly though, there’s very little crossover between the A4 Allroad and the dedicated Audi Q5 medium SUV.

The A4 Allroad isn’t the only model within the wider Audi crossover line-up offering a passenger car driving position and packaging; other markets have access to something called the Audi A1 Citycarver – an A1 hatch that’s been lifted by 35mm.

In addition to splitting the A1 Citycarver and A4 Allroad on size, there’s a clever appropriateness to the Allstreet nameplate and the way it splits the connotations of its will-be stablemates; less confining than ‘Citycarver’ but not as capable or versatile-sounding as ‘Allroad’.

Being an Audi you can guarantee all-wheel drive will feature somewhere within the admittedly niche A3 Allstreet model range – more than one variant is almost a given – but we expect most, if not all, of the A3 Allstreets to arrive with AWD traction.

Going by the amount and location of the camouflage adorning the black prototype snapped by our spy photographers in December, the A3 Allstreet will almost certainly brandish some rugged-looking body cladding and imitation skid plates as seen on its A1, A4 and even A6 counterparts.

Powertrains will more than likely mirror or at least partially mirror that of the regular A3 range, especially the gutsier four-cylinder engines and the yet-to-arrive plug-in hybrids.

Audi Australia is yet to formally confirm the A3 Allstreet for our market, but we anticipate the car will be revealed to the public by the end of the year and possibly arrive here as part of the MY23 line-up.

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