Tag: RS Q3

The Audi RS Q3 is now on Australian shores. It’s powered by a 228kW/420Nm version of the inline five cylinder engine found in the old RS3 Sportback.

We’ve known for sometime the list price for the RS Q3 would be a pretty sharp $81,900, but now we have more detail on the level of spec and the options packages Audi Australia has put together.

Suffice to say if you tick all of the option packs you’ll be looking at smidge over $92,500 before on road costs. Although, the standard level of spec is not too bad; further details are available after the break.

Audi Australia boss Andrew Doyle is keen to remind us all that, in Audispeak, the RS Q3 is quite cheap.

“Our price point of $81,900 is really going to motivate buyers to look at the legendary ‘RS’ Audi sports car they have always wanted,” Doyle said. “No other car offers anything like the kind of performance, versatility or exclusivity of an Audi RS model at this price point. It’s a truly unique vehicle—the first of its kind—and we believe it will only further expand on Australia’s growing love of performance SUV models.”

Let’s hope this augers well for the next-gen RS3, when it does arrive.

Audi has released information on the production-ready RS Q3, which will debut in Geneva next month. It’s the first of Audi’s Q series to wear RS badging and overall it looks pretty good, that’s if a balls-out smallish SUV floats your boat.

The RS Q3 is powered by Audi’s noted 2.5 litre inline 5 cylinder turbo, also found in the TT RS. Although in Q3 guise the five-pot has been reined in to produce 228kW/420Nm, down from 250kW/450Nm in the TT.

Despite a porky 1730kg kerbweight Audi says the RS Q3 can reach 100km/h in 5.5 seconds and, if you potter about slowly in front of your child’s school showing off to the other mums, you can sip fuel at just 8.8l/100km. That task will be made a bit easier, too, thanks to the standard 7-speed S tronic.

Last year Audi presented the RS Q3 concept and sadly from that model we’ve lost an exhaust tip and some power. The single oval tip doesn’t work as well in our opinion. Having said that, the styling of the RS Q3 is smart and straight from the Audi RS playbook. It’s squat appearance, accentuated by the 25mm drop in ride height, gives the RS Q3 a sense of purpose; even if it may not actually have one.

The RS Q3 is coming to Australia early next year and while Audi Australia is keeping mum about the price they have revealed it will be the first RS model sold here for less than $100,000.

Pencil in a starting price of $99,990 then.

We never did get around to finishing that review on the Q3 2.0 TFSI quattro we drove last year (shame on us), but up to about seven tenths the Q3 surprised with its general handling capabilities. Beyond that things became a little mushy. We expect the engineers from quattro GmbH will have sorted those issues to a degree, let’s hope it hasn’t come at the expense of general comfort.