Audi RS3 review

For a car that starts at a mere £25k in its bog standard tiny petrol form, it has always been a little tough to think of this as the kind of car that’s worth a cool £54k and up. But then the RS3 is an A3 in the same way that a machete is a butter knife. And that’s the way it should really be considered – a completely different vehicle. But anyone buying one will probably already know that.

You get three options to choose from with the RS3, once you’ve decided whether to go for Sportback (hatch) or Saloon (saloon) – there’s standard RS3, Carbon Black (which adds a black styling pack, RS exhaust and the fancy headlights) and the range-topping Vorsprung trim, which chucks in everything, like a Bang and Olufsen sound kit, electric tailgate, higher top speed (174mph versus 155mph) and 360-degree parking cameras. 

There is also the optional £5,500 Dynamic pack, which you can spec separately if you want some of the kit in a lesser spec, including Audi Drive select with the adaptive suspension, ceramic brakes, sports exhaust and a top speed increase to 180mph. In comparison the Vorsprung spec costs roughly £8k more than the next trim down, but packs the RS3 with pretty much all of the options you could ever need. Even though it makes the RS3 £63k, it’s actually pretty good value given what you get. The saloon pops up at £1,000 more across the board.

Should we talk about value for money? 

There’s only one flavour of Mercedes-AMG A45 S available, in hatch form and costing £63,140, so the Audi compares favourably there. If you’re considering other costs, then 30.7mpg and 208g/km CO2 emissions for the AMG car compares with 29.7mpg and 216g/km on the RS3. 

The industry standard CAP measurement sees the RS3 retaining about 66 per cent of its value over three years and 60k miles, and that compares favourably with the Merc at 62 per cent, and whacking the warranty up to four years and 75k miles only costs £455 (£970 for five years and 90k), which will give peace of mind.

The new paint options for this version of the RS3 are Kemora Grey (a no-cost option) or Kyalami Green (£575 on the options list) by the way – with the latter being quite excellently eye-bleed and almost fluorescent. You wouldn’t miss it, although you probably would regret it after six months. But in terms of buying, the RS3 looks like a fairly predictable bet – not many surprises here again, which is exactly what you want.