Third time lucky for Audi TT’s sports car dream

Audi’s TT has been many things to many people with many levels of driving talent and interest, but the one thing it has never been – despite Audi’s insistent clarion calls – is a sports car.

The engineers who worked to change that were always so hamstrung by its Golf origins that they took to trying to balance it by using aluminium to replace steel bits at the front. While they could massage it until it became swift and capable, they could never bridge the gap to make it hugely engaging.

That’s changed as of today. The Gen III is still based on the Golf, but the new Volkswagen’s architecture is flexible enough to allow outliers like the TT to flourish where once they just existed.

And while the once-brave design may be a bit conservative on the outside, the interior of the TT has taken a quantum leap, eradicating all central screens to create a stunningly clean, simply gorgeous cabin layout with a very thin dashboard. Everything is now either in the middle of the gorgeous vents (air con, seat heaters) or in the stupendously intuitive 12.3-inch multi-media screen dashboard. It has the tacho and the speedo, plus all the navigation and entertainment and telephone info, and you can embiggen or shrink them as you need with just one button.

The new car is 50kg lighter in its base form, scores the latest evolution of the Haldex-based quattro all-wheel drive and uses the same sophisticated four-link rear end as the Golf R. It uses the same, well, almost everything as the Golf R, right down to the 228kW version of the new 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine sitting across the bay and the six-speed dual-clutch transmission. Audi brags that everything except the bore and stroke ratio is new – and it is.

With 380Nm of torque between 1800 and 5700rpm, it’s a meaty thing, capable of shooting the TTS to 100km/h in just 4.6 seconds, which was Ferrari territory not that long ago. And it gets 6.9 litres/100km on the NEDC cycle.

Torque vectoring

It’s not even how quick it is, though, it’s how quick it feels. The steering is as quick as the engine and it’s even quicker in the (standard) Drive Select’s Dynamic mode, plus the whole thing has torque vectoring to help it stay on course in corners. The steering stiffens up the (again, standard) magnetic dampers, loosens up the electronic anti-fun and makes the TTS fly. And slip and slide enthusiastically.

Its engine is a sonorous and smooth companion, meaty and strong and capable of hauling hard out of the twistiest bends even from 3,000 rpm, then braaping viciously on every upshift. And then it will rev freely and joyfully clear to 7,000rpm and the only part of the powertrain that gives you pause is that the brain overrides the manual mode if you hit the limiter or push into the kickdown.

But it’s the new-found chassis poise and steering feel that make the TTS what it has become. It’s the kind of car you can be instantly comfortable with; you can whip it into what would once have been terminal understeer even at the first corner. But it’s not a terminal understeerer anymore. The brain figures it out, delivers surprising amounts of slip angle and uses a bit of four-wheel drifting to cancel out any front-end push.

And then it just fires out of the corner with an arrogance and predictability that mirrors the brilliance of the Golf R but adds a flatter cornering stance and even more adjustability mid-corner. Come in too hot? Just lift off or dab the brakes and the TTS responds precisely, with just 2.0 turns lock-to-lock and a fat steering wheel. The back end will move on the way in to help you turn, but it never feels like it will get scary out of control on you at any other part of the corner.

Soaks up bumps

For all that, it hasn’t lost its practicality. It’s still a tick over four metres long (4.18 metres) and rides on a 2.51-metre wheelbase with 18-inch wheels and tyres (though our car ran on 19-in Hankooks). The ride on the larger tyres is firm, but doesn’t ever border on the uncomfortable. Its standard adaptive magnetic damping system works a treat when the TTS strikes awkward bumps in corners, when the front end is loaded up. It soaks them up and just moves on.

The luggage area stretches to 305 litres, complete with a cargo net to stop your stuff sliding around. When it comes to filling it up, you’ll find there’s no fuel cap. You just flip open the fuel flap and stick the nozzle in and the TT will seal itself when you’ve finished.

The bodyshell is made from aluminium sheeting, while the core of the passenger survival cell is made from hot-formed steel and, for the nerdy, it has 3,020 weld points and 1,113 rivets, 44 punch rivets and 128 self-tapping screws in it. In all, it sits 10mm lower than its predecessor and is 23 per cent more rigid when it’s twisted.

It’s harder to crash than ever before, too, with Audi giving it active lane assistance and active cruise control. It’s even self-parking.

It’s a wonderfully athletic evolution of the TT brand and its volume origins stop it tantalisingly short of the driving precision from the best thoroughbred sports cars, such as the Cayman.

Its interior alone will woo most of its buyers, but the chassis engineering means the TTS finally deserves to be on the radar of the hard-core.

Tale of two TTs

The TTS might be the fastest of the TT family (so far) but it’s not the most fun. That honour goes to the humble front-drive entry-level TT.

It carries the same 2.0-litre turbo architecture and delivers just 169kW of power – but what a delivery.

It somehow boxes well above its weight, feeling fat in the mid-range (its 370Nm is just 10Nm shy of the TTS’s figure) and retaining a lovely linear power delivery that feels and sounds more like an in-line six.

But its sheer athleticism, sparked by its lighter (1230kg) weight, raucous throttle response, slick six-speed manual box and wonderfully accurate steering, steals the show. You throw it into a corner and you just want to keep throwing it into corners, forcing you to drive dozens of km out of your way just to find more of them. The TTS might be faster but the TT (which takes 5.3 seconds to reach 100km/h) isn’t exactly slow and seems to deliver even more fun for far fewer euros.