A hot hatch with distinction

It's not big and it's not really all that clever, but the latest S3 is a lot of fun, as Richard Cree discovered when he took it for a spin

In these days of hybrid and fusion it’s refreshing to come across a car that does one thing well. Whether the Audi S3—the much sportier sibling of the popular A3—was really designed as the archetypal one-trick pony is debatable. But when that trick is as much fun as this, does it really matter? Let’s be honest, for anyone over the age of 25, it’s a little bit too brash, noisy, lively and thirsty to cut it as a city run around. It’s also a little too uncompromising to cut it as a comfortable drive on long journeys. So what’s the point? Well to understand this most simple of beasts you have to take it on a bright winter’s day to some clear country lanes, safely out of the killjoy flash of prying speed cameras.

But then it doesn’t take a huge amount of intuition to work that out. The quickest glance into the cabin proves that the S3 passes the Ronseal test with flying colours. Thanks to plenty of flash, brash chrome and lots of sporty details, understated elegance is not what’s on offer here. 

Having spent a couple of days nipping round London, having a mostly enjoyable time, I thought a good work out on the M4 was required to really give it a fair hearing. While that was OK (although my fun was curtailed by some atrocious weather), it was the next morning that the whole point of what those clever Audi engineers had done became clear.

On the sort of morning that fills the heart with false nostalgia for a rural England that anyone under the age of 60 never experienced, we took a very long way back to the motorway. As a fully paid up urbanite and city dweller, I’ve never really understood what the country was for, other than growing things, bad smells and pubs that always seem to shut just as you arrive breathless and gasping from a four-hour hike. But on this morning, it all became clear—it’s where you get the most from superb handling, very powerful (265PS) hatchbacks.

It’s fast, it’s furious, but it’s also fun to throw around. Thanks to Audi’s much-trumpeted, and always improving quattro four-wheel-drive, it displays a well mannered kind of aggression. If this car was a youth—and let’s face it, isn’t that who the hot hatch market is really aimed at—it would be one dressed in a cashmere hoodie. Much as I loved the drive, I’m not sure I could justify shelling out £27,000 for a car that doesn’t offer much in the way of versatility. Perhaps there’s a reason for all those hybrids and fusions after all.

What is it? Audi S3
How much? £27,000
Where’s it headed?To the nearest country lane
Who’s driving? The not so boyish racer