A timeless classic? Just look above for the answer
MARK TISSHAW
MILEAGE 4203
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT
Audi’s everyman sports car is bowing out after 25 years and the five-pot is on borrowed time. Let’s celebrate both
I t’s to Audi’s credit that the lineage of the TT has remained so clear across its three generations. Nothing will ever top the purity and simplicity of the original, created in a different and simpler era of legislative requirements. Yet as the coupé prepares to bow out after 25 years of service, it does so having stayed clear and consistent in its size, style and shape.
Such was obvious as I took our TT RS home to Norfolk and parked it alongside my mum’s original TT. I was expecting the new car to dwarf her one, but the two seemed to have remarkably similar footprints. If anything, the original’s rounded front end made it look a more substantial car, longer and more elegant than the stocky Mk3.
It has been a while since I drove a TT, and the 400-odd miles I did over a weekend in it made for a fascinating reacquaintance. More than 70 cars from seven brands have been built on the Volkswagen Group’s MQB platform, but none feels as distinctive as the TT.
That’s not just through its proportions but also its interior, where a central infotainment screen was eschewed in favour of putting everything on the driver display (which makes navigating it all a bit tricky, but I like it for being different) so that Audi could try to replicate the distinctiveness of the Mk1’s dash, with its round air vents. It’s all very neat and tidy and feels a cut above anything else MQB in terms of innovation and style.
However, an MQB limitation is that the seat can’t be mounted any lower. It feels too high in a car so squat and close to the ground, and though I’m hardly a giant at 5ft 10in, my head was touching the roof in my normal driving position and small variants of it when I tried to stop the contact. It wasn’t just me, as similar-size passengers felt the same when sitting to my left.
The weather was foul all weekend, but our TT RS was unperturbed: traction was always excellent in the rain and I had to make very few allowances for the sodden roads. It feels like a true all-weather, everyday performance car, much like the related Volkswagen Golf R.
The rain did show up a couple of design flaws, however. Open the boot and be prepared for a couple of waterfalls to run from the lifted tailgate into the car, soaking anything inside. Likewise, open a window when the TT RS is wet (and the rain has stopped, before you ask) and your right arm and leg wil
