[ 2016 ]
Audi TT & TTS STILL UNIQUE, STILL REMARKABLY GOOD.
THE AUDI TT IS ONCE AGAIN THE QUICK- heavier stuff—the steel—was concentrated at est car in its segment. It’s also the lightest, the back of the car. But Audi engineers kept the cheapest, and prettiest. Then again, it’s the slow- steel low in the car here, lowering its center of est, heaviest, most expensive, and least attrac- gravity by 0.4 inch. The hatch and doors are tive, too, because the TT exists—still—in a sort now aluminum as well—with the exception of of competitive no-man’s-land. In the new-car the plastic bumper covers, every exterior body market, it’s a party of one, a style-forward, four- panel is made of the stuff. Aluminum has also seat sports car with humble roots that somehow been used in an unlikely home: the electrical system. The 2016 TT’s battery is manages to be neither expensive or PRICE $42,000 in the trunk, helping offset the cheap, hard-core or fluffy. car’s inherent forward weight Yet, a lack of competition doesn’t (TT, est) POWERTRAIN bias, and that requires fat cables take away from the fact that this is 2.0-liter I-4, 230 hp, running from stem to stern, supthe best example yet of Audi’s all- 273 lb-ft; AWD, plying juice. For that purpose, wheel-drive two-plus-two. The TT 6-speed automatic the TT replaces copper wires with deserves praise for being a rarity in WEIGHT 2943 lb 0–62 MPH 5.3 sec aluminum in a thicker gauge, ofa safety-bloated era: Each revision TOP SPEED 155 mph fering the same current-handling has been lighter than the last. In ON SALE Summer capability but saving around six this, its third generation, the car is down an additional 100 pounds. Like TTs past, pounds in the process. So the new TT is lighter, which is swell on it shares a platform with the Volkswagen Golf; both cars are now based on the VW Group’s flex- paper. But the car also feels lighter. Not just through the typical-Audi light steering, but also ible MQB architecture. The TT still has its trademark aluminum- in the way the whole car rotates. There’s less of and-steel hybrid unibody. In the past, the the heavy-up-front feeling of the previous TT, in
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part due to strategic weight reduction and also because the front axle has been moved forward. The resulting longer wheelbase also helps improve ride quality. Audi also got more out of the TT’s engines without making them bigger. Graduating to the latest version of VW’s 2.0-liter turbo four, the base TT now puts out 230 hp, up from 211. At 310 hp, the sportier TTS version inches toward the last-generation TT RS, which pumped out 360 hp. A new RS model is already in the works; that may be the tip of a TT iceberg, because
