400HP Audi TT RS Looks Ready To Throw Down

BOLD RIDE

Copyright © 2016 Bold Ride LLC.

 

Posted by Andrew T. Maness 

 

                               

                                 

The 2016 Audi TT is a fine little sports car, and the TT S dials up the fun to a degree that’s satisfactory for most folks. But then again, the world is full of outliers, people who want the most out of something—that’s where Audi’s RS line comes into play.

 

 It’s no secret that Audi is looking expand their high-performance family on a global scale, and that’s great news for fans of the brand here in the United States. Leading the charge for the next generation of RS cars on our fair shores will be the razor sharp 2017 Audi TT RS.

 

Set to officially debut at the Beijing Auto Show later this week, the new TT RS will get power from a turbocharged 5-cylinder, good news for fans of the sound produced by the powerplant in the previous generation. The uncommon engine configuration makes 400 horsepower, and 354 lb-ft of torque, and glory be to those German engineers because they made it all available between 1,700 and 5,850 RPM.

All that juice will be distributed to all four wheels via Audi’s Quattro system, and handled by a dual-clutch transmission (and only a dual-clutch transmission), so 0-60 times are unsurprisingly quick. The coupe does the sprint in 3.7 seconds, and the roadster in 3.9, not far off from the vastly more expensive Audi R8 V10′s time of 3.1 seconds.

Speaking of the R8, it will be interesting to see what kind of competition the TT RS poses to its bigger brother. In the same way Porsche kept performance variants of the Boxster and Cayman from stepping on the toes of the 911, Audi has done the same with the TT RS and the R8. Although they’re a ocean apart on paper, I think they’ll be quite close in terms of driving experience.
Though it’s yet to be priced, it’s safe to assume the new TT RS will severely undercut its R8 sibling. Catch it on display at the Beijing Motor Show this week.