Wait a minute: why are we comparing an Audi RS 3 to an Audi RS 2?
Good point. The RS 3 we have here is the Sportback – the baby among RSs today, even if it has 400 horsepower – while the RS 2 was the origin of fast big Audi estate cars. We owe a lot to him. And yet: both are five-cylinder turbo Rennsport cars from Ingolstadt with enormous power and ditto price tags. The Audi RS 3 starts at a few euros less than 95,000 euros, without options. When the Audi RS 2 was launched in 1994, it had to yield more than 81 mille, converted into euros. Let go of the inflation correction and you end up with somewhere around 139,000 euros. Yaks.
The specs will turn out ugly for the RS 2?
Sort of, though every time we drive an Audi RS 2 it’s striking how fast it actually is – once you get past the almighty turbo lag. The 2.2-liter five-cylinder engine, which has been poked by Porsche, has a huge KKK turbo and delivers 316 hp and 410 Nm of torque. That results in a 0-to-100 time of 5.4 seconds, about the same as a manual Aston Martin DB7 did in those times. However, the Audi RS 3 is a thoroughbred monster. The power is roughly equal to that of the previous generation, but the torque rose to 500 Nm and we clocked the sprint to 100 km / h in 3.6 seconds, nota bene below the 3.8 count that Audi itself states.
I feel a ‘but’ coming…
Everything about the Audi RS 2 is real. It drives wonderfully, feels light despite its size and is fast once you get above 4,000 rpm and can stay there. It’s also well put together, all the grilles are metal and serve a purpose, the hood lever comes out through the third Audi ring (which makes us crazy enough) and the interior is delightful, with blue woven carbon fiber on dashboard and doors, and soft blue Alcantara on the Recaro seats. It certainly doesn’t sound sporty at low speeds, but nothing is ‘acoustically supported’ either, as with the RS 3. But even when idling, it lets you know that it is good company through all the fine vibrations.
Didn’t Audi need a mountain of help with production?
Well and or, but that just makes the Audi RS 2 cooler. The ‘packages’ were built in Ingolstadt and sent to Stuttgart, where Porsche mounted the powertrain, wheels, brakes and even the door mirrors. Unfortunately, this RS 3 feels less special than the previous one. Unless you look at that huge rag grille on the outside, it looks like it could have been an S3 too, and the interior is dark and gloomy. Would have been nice if Audi à la Mercedes-AMG A45 offered a large rear wing.
Surely things have improved over the years?
If you drive them before and after each other, the difference in braking is especially noticeable. There may be Porsche on the RS 2’s calipers, but braking technology has really progressed by leaps and bounds in the last few decades. You can even get carbon-ceramic copies on the RS 3. They both have quattro four-wheel drive, of course, but the RS 3 is so packed with tech that you can put it in RS Torque Rear mode to let it do some fun drifting tricks. Please never try that in such an expensive RS 2.
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