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The revered RS badge is about to adorn a compact class Audi for the first time as the new RS 3 Sportback waits in the wings with suitably spectacular performance and an evocative five-cylinder soundtrack for an early 2011 SA debut.
Audi high performance engineering division quattro GmbH takes the five-door Sportback version of the A3 as the foundation for the latest RS model, and in deference to the classic quattros of the 'Eighties endows it with a turbocharged five-cylinder petrol engine that employs 21st Century TFSI turbo charging and direct injection technology.
First seen in the TT RS, this all-new unit fills the cabin with a rich, bass-heavy five-cylinder tone as it channels 254 kW and 450 Nm of torque to the road through a standard seven-speed S tronic twin-clutch transmission and quattro all-wheel-drive.
A sound flap in the exhaust branch intensifies the sound even further when the driver presses the Sport button, which also varies throttle response.
Maximum torque is readily available at the low end of the rev range, from around 1 600 r/min, and remains constant up to 5 300 revolutions, making for excellent flexibility and response.
The large turbocharger generates up to 1.2 bar of boost pressure, and downstream of it is an intercooler which achieves an efficiency rate of more than 80 percent.
The combination of the latest forced induction technology with FSI direct injection facilitates a high compression ratio (10.0:1) along with a correspondingly high efficiency ratio.
Flaps in the intake tract mix the air as it flows in. The two camshafts, each adjustable by 42 degrees of crankshaft rotation, also enhance the efficiency of the mixture formation.
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