Our first impressions of Audi's new A3 compact luxury saloon.
This impacts interior space and it’s only when you climb into the rear seat that you realise the
A3 saloon is not as spacious as it looks. Audi claims that the A3 saloon has the best-in-class space with more room than the Mercedes CLA, but you still can’t get away from the significantly cramped interiors, which ironically is highlighted by how big the car looks from the outside. Tall people in the rear will find a shortage of headroom and the humped rear centre position rules this car out from being a practical five-seater. For average-sized adults, clever adjustment of the front seats can provide decent comfort and if you’re chauffeur-driven, you would be best advised to have the front passenger seat taken all the way forward.
The front seats are the best place to be. The driver is surrounded by high-quality materials and the quartet of ‘jet’-styled round aircon vents reek of quality in the way they operate. The buttons, though on the smaller side, have a wonderful tactile feel and we loved the way the high-definition seven-inch monitor glides out of the dashboard. In fact, the A3 saloon comes with the latest version of Audi’s MMI (multimedia interface) infotainment system. It has a bigger central dial, but a subtle improvement is the new raised toggle switches for the shortcut buttons, which are easier to operate now. A bit of a disappointment though was the feel of the plastic on the top-half of the dash. It looked and felt a little hard and not as plush as the rest of the materials in this well-appointed cabin. And again, the A3 saloon’s interiors don’t have the panache of the CLA’s, which has a more exciting cabin.
The Audi A3 saloon has been planned with a wide variety of engines, which will eventually range from the base 1.4 TFSI 140bhp petrol motor to a 2.0 TDI diesel developing 184bhp and a massive 38.7kgm of torque. There’s also a 180bhp 1.8 TFSI engine which, interestingly, will first come to India under the hood of the new Skoda Octavia. In the compact A3 saloon, the silky-smooth 1.8 TFSI offers sufficient grunt with its broad spread of torque. It’s a delightful engine and we hope Audi offers this particular option in India. The fact is that the A3 saloon’s launch in India is too far away to get a fix on the engine options, but we feel the 103.5bhp 1.6 TDI, a new frugal diesel, could be the bread-and-butter model in the India range and hence I spent the most time driving this version.