► Month three with the Audi TTS
► 500-mile round trip this month
► A head turner with huge want-factor
With an invitation to a friend’s wedding in west Wales in my pocket and a 500-mile round trip ahead, I skipped over the Ginetta’s keys for a change and asked regular keeper Tim Pollard if he wouldn’t mind me borrowing the TT. I’m keen to keep the Ginetta track-fit and I fancied taking a car with a radio. I know, I must be going soft.
So I’ve gone from a car with two analogue dials and an odometer to one with what looks like an entire cinema multiplex behind the steering wheel. The TT’s fancypants digital instrument panel is rather spectacular, and a great talking point, but some hours into the journey I began to ever so slightly resent looking at it. Its unrelenting brightness can get a bit wearying at night – like sitting too close to a TV – and with myriad displays and functions to scroll through, you sometimes need to draw on reserves of willpower to keep your attention completely on the road, where it should be. But the TT’s cabin as a whole is a bit of a masterpiece: beautifully put together, ergonomically intuitive and great to look at. A note to any Audi designers reading, though – can you make the coat hooks in the back a bit bigger, please? My suit made a bid for freedom every time the roads got twisty (as they tend to in Wales). Must be the G-forces – grip levels from the 4wd system and those huge tyres are prodigious, rain or shine. Unsurprisingly the ride’s just a little bit choppy on those gun-carriage 20in rims and rubber-band-profile tyres, even with the dampers set to Comfort mode, but body control is fantastic. And it’s so, so fast. Thing is, it’s almost a bit too good. All that grip and sophisticated damping kind of sweeps a good road aside, rather than letting you really enjoy it.
The TT got a big thumbs up from friends at the wedding, turning plenty of heads. Bet it won’t so much in a few months’ time when the streets will surely be saturated with Mk3 TTs. Audi’s got that want-factor thing nailed.
Logbook: Audi TTS Coupe
Price: £40,270
As tested: £46,565
Miles this month: 1128
Total miles: 2980
Our mpg: 27.9
Official mpg: 40.9
Fuel this month: £222.73
Extra costs: £0
From the driving seat
+ It’s so, so fast
– It’s 40 grand
– And yet goes without cruise control
+ Optional sports seats super-comfy
– They should be, for £995
– Postman Pat-red leather already showing signs of tarnish
– Coat hooks not G-force-proof