As long as road cars are built down to a price, with safety in mind, or manufactured to fill a gap in the market, there will always be space for the aftermarket industry to help realise the cars full potential. That’s not to say that Audi’s S3 sweet new S3 hot hatch is too safe, reserved or made down to a price, but within in the Volkswagen Group’s hierarchy there will always be a margin of something held back.
We haven’t sampled it yet but the previous Audi S3 was good at everything it did and it garnered loads of praise as the best premium all-rounder hot hatchback. The new Audi S3’s four-cylinder unit delivers 380 Nm of torque to the crankshaft and power is rated at 206 kW here in South Africa. A sprint from zero to 100 km/h is completed in 5.2 seconds when equipped with the S-Tronic double-clutch and 5.4 seconds with the good old fashioned manual transmission.
German Audi-tuning specialists, ABT, take this adequate amount of performance and tune it up to its full potential in the Audi S3. Courtesy of a new engine control unit the 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine now outputs a Mercedes-Benz A45 AMG-busting 275 kW and 460 Nm of torque. That is a gargantuan amount of power and torque and acceleration to 100 km/h is much stronger thanks to the traction the Quattro all-wheel-drive provides: think 4.6 seconds – just as quick as the A45 AMG.
Visually, the ABT S3 is pretty understated and only gets black double-spoke alloy wheels to alter the exterior look of the normal Audi S3. The wheels can be ordered in a diameter of 18-, 19- or 20-inches and 235 wide rubber replacing the standard Continentals.
