Audi TTRS: A cracker?

Friday, August 14, 2009

Interesting review of the Audi TTRS.

It’s a compact unit, as it must be to fit across a nose, with slightly undersquare bore-stroke dimensions. It makes 335bhp from its 2480cc, not surprisingly with the help of a turbocharger (another original-Quattro commonality), available all the way from 5400 to 6700rpm. The 332lb ft torque plateau ends just 100rpm earlier, at 5300rpm, having started at 1600rpm. Like an R8 V10’s, this engine shows every sign of delivering energy with the unstoppable thrust of a steam engine even if it can’t quite match an R8’s ultimate crankshaft speeds.

What doesn’t change is the claimed 4.6sec 0-62mph time. This is one fast TT, and so it feels. With the Sport button depressed it’s a loud one, too, with a deep, guttural note released via a now-open valve by the left-hand tailpipe. That valve opens anyway at high speed and load, so Sport doesn’t make the RS go any faster, and after a while the bassy boom gets wearing. However, the button also sharpens the throttle response (it’s pretty crisp to begin with) and firms the optional magnetic dampers.