Angling for a job on Top Gear

Drove past the Audi dealership on Saturday and parked out front was the brand new S3. As we’d just washed ours we felt entitled to park up and saunter on over to it – just for a look. Snaps for sales skills – the guy came out, shook our hands, remembered my name and encouraged us to take it out for a spin – unchaperoned and without sight-of-licence!

Mmmmm. Nice car. But … feels like a big car. Much bigger than ours (actually it is by a couple of cm here and there) but I mean feels bigger like getting into a Holden Commodore or something. Clutch very soft and easy to use. Gear change very smooth. Breaks very easy. Not like our car – you feel like you’re sitting on the road feeling every bump and gear changes are a hard crunch – I’m sure that’s racing-car style and not stuffed gear box? The new car was very quiet but, man, out of pootling town traffic it goes like a rocket! Sounds so sweet – get’s to 100 in about 5 seconds but makes a rather disappointing ‘ssss’ when the turbo kicks in not the good old boy-racer ‘f tss tsss’ like ours does. Also a bit crazy on the corners – thought I might slide a couple of times and wasn’t sure whether that was because I was actually going a lot faster than I would in our car or that it just felt different and I felt more terrified because it was a brand new someone else’s car or that it actually was not as good on the corners. The door jambs go a lot higher meaning there’s less window to look out on the sides and the doors don’t make the solid thunk when closing them.

To summarise … a larger comfortable touring car that picks up and goes like a rocket. Oh. And it was white. Yuck. But there is a special S3-only colour called Solar Orange …