- Most powerful TT in series production
- ‘Supercar pace, quattro adhesion’
- Top speed heading for 300km/h
Its maker, Audi, describes it as a supercar, the most powerful yet of its family, capable of a sub-four second dash to 100km/h and potential top speed of 280km/h thanks to some of the most advanced car-tech on the planet.
And the famous five-cylinder engine…
It’s the 2017 Audi TT RS, in roadster and coupe guise, and it’s just been launched globally with a revised five-cylinder, 2.5-litre, 300kW (45kW more than before), TFSI engine with dual-injection and Audi Valvelift technology packages for 17% better performance than its predecessor.
The car is 26kg lighter than its sire thanks to an aluminium crankcase, helping the car to the base top speed of 250km/h – the 280km/h promise coming with the addtion of an optional ‘dynamic package plus’ and sports exhaust. No doubt some tuning house will take that to beyond the triple ton.
Audi Drive Select gives the driver a choice of Comfort, Auto, Dynamic and Individual modes which variously adjust the progressive steering, throttle, exhaust flaps and all-wheel drive, that last working with torque control to individual wheels.
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Another option is a one-centimetre drop in suspension height that incorporates the RS suspension/shock-absorber adjustment
The lowered body makes the standard 19″ cast-alloy rimmed wheels fill their arches even more snugly: the rims are available in silver, matt titanium or shiny black – as, indeed, are the alternative 20″, seven-spoked rotor design rims exclusively available on the TT RS as an option.
Inside the front rims are perforated and internally ventilated 370mm steel discs with eight-piston calipers. The rear discs are 310mm across. Carbon/ceramic front discs are another option.
Standout shell design features, Audi says, include large air-inlets, a ‘Singleframe’ grille with a new honeycomb lattice and quattro logo, aerodynamic sills and a fixed rear wing supported by two thin double struts.
VIDEO: WATCH the Audi TT RS in action
Buyers not so keen on shouting “look at me” can elect to have the automatically extending spoiler familiar from the‘mainstrea’ TT. Beneath the spoiler is what Audi describes as “a striking bumper with a strongly profiled diffuser insert with four vertical fins flanked by the large-bore elliptical tail pipes of the RS exhaust system”.
Nine standard body colours, including the RS-specific tones Nardo grey and Catalunya red, metallic, are available. If the buyer wants to customse, the Audi exclusive programme can be invoked.
Any of the above, Audi adds, can be combined with matt aluminium/gloss-black styling packages “which soften or darken the look of the Singleframe grille surround, RS rear spoiler blade and diffuser insert”.
Prices in the UK start at the equivalent (September 2016) of about R984 000.
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