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Date: Thursday 30th July 2009
Location: B4355 Knighton to Newtown road
Car: Audi TTRS
Price as tested: £48,000 approx




Now we all know how good the B7 RS4 is, well we should do, we all drive one.
So it was with great interest that i received the keys to Quattro GMBH latest tune up, the TTRS. Mine for the day, and boy was i going to test drive it like i drive my RS4.....fast, winding mountain roads, hairpins, heel and toe changes.
The road is great for testing performance cars, reasonably long straights, great hairpins and sweeping bends and best of all very little traffic either way.
22 miles, brief stop in Newtown to allow the wife to recover from feeling sick (Oops) and then back the same way. Stopping for some photos.


I'll let you all know how good or bad it is in a moment, but first the spec....

Sepang blue, classic rs silver mirrors and a more aggressive front splitter, this car has finally broken away from the hairdresser mould and become a drivers car, dare i say it, a mans car.
The interior is nice, flat bottom steering wheel (multifunction), dvd sat nav, recaro rs bucket seats, auto dim rear view mirror, rain sensors and auto adaptive lights, bose, cruise.

The engine is a 2.5 tfsi, a 5 cylinder scorcher.
6800rpm redline.
2.5 litres, turbo charged and develops 340bhp powered through a 6 speed close ratio gearbox.



I was told that the exhaust note was painstakingly crafted to be phenomenally good, it is...
All i can say is, it's orgasmic, think you've got it good with the milltek?
This is amazing, get the revs over 3500rpm and your not driving a TTRS, your now in a racing car, competing for first place, it really is that good.

Ok so how fast is it, how do's it handle and is it competition for the rs4 crown.

Well its fast, i would say up to 80mph its quicker than the rs4, at this point the rs4 would start to pull away.
Acceleration from about the 80-100 mark is not as strong as the rs4 but still good.
Be interested to see what the tuners can do.

Handling is excellent, well up to the rs4 mark, although obviously i haven't tried it on a track, but hey A and B roads are the norm, aren't they?
This car has the standard suspension, magnetic ride is an option, would have been nice to try that, but i'd happily have the standard.
Ride quality was good, bumps were handled reasonably well, road noise was a bit noisy though.



Conclusion.

Pros

Staggering acceleration through the gears
Noise
Handling
Looks are great, but beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so make your own mind up. But i will say, people took photos as i drove by, Honest !
Very comfortable with the RS Bucket seats, better than the RS4 buckets.

Cons

Limited space, although the boot is surprisingly big, its also shallow.
Rear seats ok for small children/vertically challenged adults only.
Front seat don't fold forward well, due to side bolsters, so you have to move seat forward and then fold (what a pain)
RS Buckets unavailable, yes i know they are a no cost option, but dealer informed me that all new cars will only have the standard sports seats due to a supplier issue. This will apparently be rectified at some point.

RS4 crown? No, this car is not a discreet, fast and capable of moving lots of baggage machine. Its a sports car. Pure and simple.

Would i buy one? Yes

More photos available here.

http://s678.photobucket.com/albums/vv150/Gazzer1968/



Thanks for reading !

Gareth

Is it that much better than an RS4 though Gareth? See from what you have written I would need an A3 sportback / A4 Avant/ Q5 as the family car and a TT-RS whereas I have an RS4 Avant now. And at £49K without magnetic ride and probably no B&O which I would specifiy that is a lot of money. It looks greta, no doubt goes great and in some circumstances will egt away from me in my RS, but did you feel it was a significant step forward all round from the RS4?

I was in my dealership today they had an R8 in for service and the owner had apparently had a TTRS glued to his rear bumper coming off a roundabout. Hi praise indeed but @£48k for a small coupe so it should be

How you manage to wing, what sounds like a lengthy, test drive!?

Nice write up and some great photos. Thanks

But shouldn't an 'RS' have more bhp? The new S4 is only slightly under the TTRS figure? The RS4 puts out 414bhp. The RS6 C6 puts out LOTS. An RS should be more powerful more aggressive and generally more of everything, over and above an 'S' model, surely?

That's the whole point with an RS isn't it?

The TTRS certainly seems to look the part, and I would imagine once the tuners have fiddled, it'll be 400+ bhp and then worth every penny. A little like the B8 S4 now with 430bhp available !

I would buy the car, but i also would need a another car for shifting the family, stuff etc.
By the way, the general manager at the audi garage has stopped driving the R8 v10 and now uses this car as his daily driver, he actually prefers this car, so much so that most of the other bods at the dealership haven't even driven it yet.
I've driven the R8 V10 and i would say, save the extra £60000 and buy estate car with it!
Get down to the dealer and bag a test drive, it really is good !
Base price is £43000, the extras on this one pushed the price up.

nice write up. I sat in one at my local dealership and thought it was very nice inside and looked good outside (except for the alloys, think the RS4 style ones would look better and less chavy than 5 spoke 19 inchers)

Its very expensive, that would be my biggest hang up with it. Am sure it is very rapid,. ok only 340 bhp but its a lot lighter than the RS4. Interesting you say it doesnt pull as hard as the RS4 over 80, thats a bit disappointing, coming from the R32 that is one of the best things about the RS4, its power which does not seem to tail off from 60 to well over 100.

does it really sound better than the RS4's V8 on full chat??

also, does anyone know if it has the 40/60 front /rear power split like the RS4 and the R8????


I'd say your only mistake in this review was taking the wife along! Car would have been lighter without extra passenger and you could have driven it harder

The TT is still a girls car.

The scandal is that it is the only new bit of Audi kit with the iconic 5 cyl engine...which I have to admit, sounds just as good as the V8.

I loved the sound of my S2.

SR71 wrote:The TT is still a girls car.

Disagree, TT yes, TTRS no, the styling is alot better, you wont be calling it a girls car after you've met one on the road.

Sorry forgot to say, need s button pressed to get the exhaust valves open (for the best noise), interestingly, i think they are open all the time unlike the RS4.

Interesting read, sounds like it provides the necessary thrill .. thanks for taking the trouble to write the review.

hmmm!!

interesting reading. The TT RS gets slated in most reports I have read so far in mags.
Handling is apparently crap on British roads.
Probably journalists blinkered by BMW and Porsche!!

wouldnt mind a roadster so I got mine last week..... black in 1/43 scale!!!!!!

340 bhp aint much is it considering Audi wrang 600+ from a 2.2 5 pot 20 years or so ago.

could easily ramp up this to north of 450 I recon without too much mods.


expect to sell 60 roadsters this year?? not many then.

You say a touch quicker than your RS4, so about the same as an RS4 Saloon then

Didn't get what you meant about the seats though, i looked at one last week & the Buckets in the TTRS looked exactly the same as in my RS4, except the backrest was TTRS badged.

TBH i did have a good look last week & they do look good, but having owned a couple of TT's i can't help but feel Quattro GMBH have devalued slightly by badging the TT with RS. OK for the 4 & 6, but a TT.

Can imagine they've good fun to drive & my dealer keeps pushing for me to take one out, but i'm still undecided.

Anyone know what state of tune the standard engine is at? i guess if not too high then a decent re-map should see 400BHP fast approaching with a big dollop of torque, now that could be a real weapon