Audi’s junior SUV gets the RS treatment, and an interesting car results
The concept of a high-performance RS-badged SUV, like the Audi RS Q3, is not entirely new.Halfway through the previous decade, when it became clear that the Q7 V12 TDI was going to possess genuinely startling performance, Audi’s blue-sky thinkers pitched a final covering of Quattro GmbH pixie dust to see the six-figure model into public affection. They were emphatically told no, this is not an RS model.Fast forward to 2013, and the brand’s sales ambitions simply do not work without granting the marketing department their wish.Given the public’s much-vaunted appetite for SUVs of all sizes, it’s a wonder that it didn’t happen a wee bit sooner. Nevertheless, as the product cycle has thrown up the Q3 before bigger, newer fare makes it to the table, Audi does at least get to claim one legitimate first.With the 2.5-litre, five-cylinder award-winner borrowed from the outgoing RS3 Sportback – along with its underpinnings and wet-clutch-controlled four-wheel drive system – the new Q3 stands alone in the compact division. The engine’s output may have been trimmed from its RS3 and TT RS outings to 306bhp and 310lb ft of torque, but it’s good for a sub-6.0sec 0-62mph sprint in a class where well above 7.0sec is the norm.Compared with its company elders, the car doesn’t feel quite as rapid in the metal. Plenty quick enough to get yourself in all sorts of trouble at the first sign of a hairpin, though. A Sportback in an outward-bound costume it may be, but it’s clear very early on that the car isn’t going to reproduce its donor’s poker-faced turn-in at ridiculously cavalier speeds.Despite cleaving 25mm from the Q3′s standard ride height, the RS remains a softer, loftier prospect, and there’s fledgling body roll and a suspicion of nose-heaviness to prove it. That makes it an SUV. What stops it from feeling immediately like an RS is that the taller chassis is less able to atone for the steering’s shameful lack of feel.The conviction and unmistakable reflexes of a rigid, riveted-to-the-road front end – common to all other Quattro-built models and legible through any amount of electrical assistance – have been diminished, leaving the driver with a familiarly thick layer of Audi detachment to work through.However, a slackening of the usual RS substrata is not without intended benefits. A different type of buyer is being targeted here, one likely to value comfort as much as dynamic rigour, and on roads where the brittle RS3 would break out the hatchet, the Q3, even on 20-inch alloy wheels, remains distinctly civilised.Partnered as it is with the growling, endlessly giving five-pot and mostly smooth seven-speed dual-clutch automatic ’box, the car can dawdle, cruise and crawl with the manners of a natural range-topper – especially on the motorway, where a tweaked top gear makes for a more placid stride (as well as 32.1mpg combined economy).Perhaps less calculated – although greedily acknowledged by grinning engineers – is the Q3′s surprisingly game level of adjustability. Because its elevated mass transfers more vigorously than it would among its unyielding stablemates, and because the power has predominantly a front-drive bias, this is one RS that will indulge in a chirping squirt of lift-off oversteer if heartily provoked.Because the rear axle is designed to nanny you back straight, there’s a limit to the lairiness, but this second playful dimension proves infinitely more diverting than the RS3’s unambiguous one.In the UK, despite a continuing shortfall in any real extra practicality and huge cost, the RS Q3 is probably going to seem a more likeable car than the RS3 all over, given its superior rolling refinement and equally top-notch innards. Whether it’s a more appealing RS model is a different matter.If the badge means all-conquering grip and benign high-speed supremacy to you, then the SUV’s idiosyncrasies aren’t going to add up. It’s certainly a more curious product than the hatch.But then it’s also the sole inhabitant of a curious niche, and if you really can’t contemplate a compact crossover without very high performance, there really isn’t anywhere else to look.