Audi evolves its take on the all-season hot hatch, but is it more style than substance?
As a concept, the Audi S3 possesses not one jot less appeal now than it did when the model first blazed the ‘sports premium compact’ trail four generations ago in 1999.You take an upmarket interior and blend it with four-wheel drive – and, of course, power. All very Audi. But the brilliant bit is that the concoction is then wrapped up in the skin of an ordinarily sized family hatchback. The S3 therefore represents everything modern Audi does well, only distilled into a conveniently small package. So why does this model often fail to ignite much enthusiasm from enthusiasts? Even the 207bhp original, now considered an attractive modern classic, came in for criticism because Audi dared to use the ‘quattro’ moniker. Its crime was to use an on-demand Haldex four-wheel drive system rather than Audi’s traditional, full-time Torsen-reliant quattro set-up. Since then, the S3 has been criticised for its weight, numb steering and poor value in comparison to its mechanically similar and recently outstanding cousin, the Volkswagen Golf R.But now, with a pinch more punch and the fitment of a clever new torque-splitter on the rear axle, the S3 is renewing its campaign for the keen driver’s vote. The upgrades form part of a wider round of mid-life tweaks for the Audi A3 family, which has been on sale since 2020 and is tipped to soldier on until at least 2027, when there’s word of an electric equivalent being rolled out.We’ll discover shortly whether the modifications are enough to right some of the S3’s most obvious wrongs, but we should also recognise that, in broader terms, the model’s place in the world has changed. In 1999, the S3 offered Lancia Delta Integrale Evo pace but with an opulence and sense of solidity anathematic to the Italian car. However, today’s car has less to prove in terms of ballistic pace. The S3 has been comfortably superseded at the top of the sports premium compact hierarchy by a new breed of 400bhp-plus supercar-fast hatches, not least Audi’s own Audi RS3 and its arch-rival, the Mercedes-AMG A45.To succeed in 2024, the S3 therefore needs only to come across as the most rounded, capable and sophisticated of the all-weather hot hatch clique. So does it?
