Our time with this sporty coupé is over, so we look back at all the hardships that it… didn’t bring
Darren Moss darren.moss@haymarket.com
Black Edition
DO YOU REMEMBER those adverts for a well-known comparison site that promised to make you feel epic? Well, I’ve experienced much the same sensation over the past few months, thanks to my Audi TTS.
Looking at my car, with its bright orange paintwork and moody black detailing, you’d expect it to go like the clappers. And it really does; with 316bhp available, it offers the same sort of performance as a Porsche 718 Cayman.
But, while accessing the performance of some fast cars can be a bit, well, intimidating, the TTS takes you by the hand and allows you to play with its substantial toybox while also making sure you don’t run out of talent.
I can’t recall a single journey in the car when I didn’t step out with a big smile on my face. The TTS’s combination of accessible performance, agile handling and light, accurate steering are as welcome in morning rush-hour traffic as they are on a country B-road at sunset. And it even felt at home when I took it for a few laps of the What Car? track, during a break in testing.
The downside of making full use of its performance, you might imagine, would be horrendous running costs, but actually my final economy figure of 30.4mpg isn’t too far removed from the model’s official figure. Fuel prices have been extortionate for much of my time with the car, but I don’t begrudge the amount of money I’ve spent filling its tank.
Like other TTs, the S differs from its rivals by not having a central infotainment screen. Instead, it funnels every function into its digital instrument display, and this tidies up the dashboard, but you might think it would make the display a little too crowded.
In reality, though, it works well, keeping all the relevant information in one place, with nothing off to the side to distract you from the road ahead. Even better, you can control the TT’s infotainment software using a dial that’s mounted within easy reach, so inputting destinations into the sat-nav and changing radio station was easier than with the touchscreen-biased set-ups of cars I’ve run previously.
Then there are the other neat interior touches. The controls for the climate control, for example, are intuitively mounted on the vents themselves. And each of these moves with such satisfying precision that I’ve often found myself playing with them in traffic, enjoying the soft clicking sound they emit. In fact, this is a car t
