Road test: 2015 Audi TT

Audi’s good-looking sports-car staple has been significantly refined.

The 2015 Audi TT’s range-topping models have an added level of performance that outguns its more expensive rival the Porsche Cayman. Courtesy Audi

Back in 1998, I was the centre of attention and causing a traffic jam. Actually that’s not true: it was the Audi TT that was turning heads and slowing everyone down; I was merely sat in the passenger seat of a left-hand drive car driven directly from the launch in Germany to the UK. It might as well have driven directly off the 1995 Frankfurt show stand, so faithful was Audi to the concept car’s looks. The TT instantly became a design icon, joining the then new iMac as the must-have accessory among those who put aesthetics above everything else.

The original TT was exquisitely proportioned, surfaced and detailed, and beautiful to look at, inside and out, but it always disappointed from behind the wheel. The second-generation car went some way to improve things, but the TT, for all its obvious visual appeal, has never quite cut it from the perspective of the more enthusiastic driver.

Audi has obviously been stung by that criticism, as Prof Ulrich Hackenberg, its board member for technical development, makes a point of saying that the new car has “less of a tendency towards understeer”; “torque vectoring allows oversteer”. That’s unlikely to matter to the TT’s existing customers, but if enough people say it drives as well as its competition, then Audi might just attract a few more buyers.

Not that being pretty but relatively uninteresting to drive has done it any harm, as Audi has sold 500,000 TTs – in coupé and roadster guises – since it was introduced in 1998. Little wonder, then, that it has taken a cautious approach to the styling of this third-generation model. So the familiar TT styling cues are present and correct. The wheels, now pushed out further to the TT’s extremities thanks to a wheelbase stretch, are still framed by chunky arches. The flanks are relatively slab-sided, and a sharp crease running the length of the car joins the line where the clamshell bonnet meets the top of the front wing.

The detailing is as exquisite as it always has been. LED lights allow crisper detailing, while the alloy cover for the fuel filler (now capless underneath) is an indulgent TT signature. If there’s any deviation from the TT’s lines, it’s perhaps around the front, where the bonnet’s more-assertive feature lines and the grille are visual nods to the Audi Quattro concept revealed in 2010.

If the exterior is a TT greatest hits, then the interior is far more adventurous. The TT debuts what Audi is calling its “virtual cockpit” – a screen where the instruments would traditionally sit, containing all the information, entertainment, mapping and car-status functions in one neatly integrated, high-resolution screen. It’s a clever, innovative touch, which removes the need for a screen in the centre of the dashboard. It’s operated (with a bit of fiddly practice) by Audi’s familiar MMI dial on the centre console – or via wheel-mounted controls.

That clearer dash allows some real flair inside, Audi claiming that the dash top’s shape echoes that of an aircraft wing, while the air vents below, with their integrated controls and turbine-like blades, look very much like jet engines. It’s impossible not to play with their integrated twist and touch controls, and the rest of the TT’s cabin is a feast of rich materials, fine fit and finish and a playfulness that’s better than anything else Audi does. Just be sure that you don’t sit in a TT before buying an R8, as the more expensive car will disappoint.

Not on the road, admittedly; the TT’s transformation would have to be significantly greater than it is to trouble its mid-engined relation. However, what it does do now is make a far more convincing case for itself. Key are the steering and chassis revisions, which do reduce the TT’s propensity to understeer. The TT turns in quickly and accurately, and there’s even some feel through the steering wheel’s chunky rim. That’s true in either the TT’s front- or Quattro four-wheel-drive iterations, while the range-topping TTS adds a level of potency to the performance that seriously outguns its rival the ­Porsche Cayman – despite the ­Audi’s lower price.

The TTS offers more individualisation of the driving experience via Audi’s Drive Select system, magnetic dampers firming things up and adding greater control – at the expense of the ride comfort at times. In its hottest 305hp guise, 100kph arrives in 4.6 seconds from rest, when equipped with the S Tronic automatic transmission, and it’s electronically limited to 250kph. The brakes are strong, too.

The TTS is more difficult to justify alongside its cheaper relations. That’s always been true of the TT, though; the lesser-powered, cheaper TTs offering the more appealing drive – adding power and price only puts it up against tougher rivals. At any point, though, it’s a more entertaining car to drive than before, and it looks and feels as good as it always has. It might not have the capacity that it once did to stop traffic with its arresting looks, but with familiarity comes greater driving appeal, and that can only be a good thing.

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