The Audi TT has always been a looker, but now it has the performance to match
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Let's be honest here. The new TT doesn't look as good as the old one.
It's not ugly at all - quite the opposite - but it just doesn't have that 'wow' factor of the original. When the first TT rolled off the production line back in the last millennium, it looked radical, conceptual and plain cool.
The new TT doesn't have quite the same visual effect. The shape isn't as bold or as pure. It still projects an air of confidence and modernity, but it's not going to get kids pointing as you past them on the high street.
Same with the interior. Everything has been updated and revised, and it feels as bullet-proof as ever, but there's nothing in there to really get excited about.
So why have we chosen the new TT as our Coupe of the Year? No, not to have a rose-tinted wander down memory lane to the heady days of the late Nineties. But because this one feels like a bona fide sports car. It really drives.
'You can thrash the TT from hairpin to S-bend without ever feeling out of your depth'
The old TT was a triumph of form over function. Looked a million dollars (that's about half a million quid in today's money), went like a hopped-up Golf. Which was what it was.
But jump in the new TT and you realise that whereas Audi left the TT's looks to evolve organically, it set about the underpinnings with a big hammer and replaced them with those of a real sports car.
That's not just a turn of phrase, either. Audi has given buyers of the new TT the option of specifying its Magnetic Ride suspension damping system, similar to that used in the Ferrari 599. The technology behind it is ridiculously complicated, but it allows you to thrash the TT from hairpin to S-bend without ever feeling out of your depth.
In fact, it drives even better than it looks. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is worth getting excited about.
Don't forget: the only place to get full details of all the winners is in the Awards issue of Top Gear magazine, on sale December 13.
Read Audi TT Car Review
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