Audi TTRS

The plane is waiting in Cologne, Germany, and we're late. The autobahn clears, and the Audi TTRS gets whipped back to third gear.

The thump in the back is instant and brutal, with basically no turbo lag. The five-cylinder burble gets deeper, the turbo whistle convinces you it's working hard, and the Audi launches past the commuters. Fourth gear rips it past 125 mph, fifth doesn't seem any less urgent, and it's just a seamless, dieselesque flat surge toward ever more speed.

When a distant van moves into the fast lane, forcing us onto the best Audi brakes this side of the R8, the TTRS is still hurling itself forward, even with 178 mph on the speedo.

But that's not the whole story. The surprising thing is that the car sits flat, comfortably soaking up the bumps and expansion joints without flinching, jinking or feeling nervous, ignoring crosswinds, arrowing straight ahead and feeling absolutely at home at very high speed.

Read more...