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| ... or via the Tiptronic-style gate. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press) |
I recently drove the FrontTrak A3 2.0T (see yesterday's road test by Jonathan Yarkony) with a manual gearbox; it's a quick little hatch in its own right, taking just a tick over seven seconds to reach 100 km/h. Drop your foot down in the V6-equipped Sportback, however, and the same journey takes place in what seems like warp speed, particularly if you've got the DSG in Sport mode. It accelerates to 100 km/h in six seconds, and if it weren't for its electronic limiter, would top out at just under 260 km/h. As if the sheer speed weren't enough, the noises that reverberate out the back of the variable resonance exhaust system are simply fantastic - they wouldn't be amiss in a thoroughbred Italian sports car. But when you're just cruising along, or shuffling through slush-logged traffic, the V6 is the tamer and smoother partner compared to the four.
Off the North American continent, the A3 is available as a three-door
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| Oddly, the trunk space has shrunk from 370 L to 302 L with 3.2 V6. Notethe cargo-web and ski-sack for transporting small and long items.(Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press) |
hatchback with this and other wonderful FSI and diesel engines, but the sales case for adding complexity to the lineup isn't particularly strong in North America, given the product overlap between it and the forthcoming Golf. The Sportback makes plenty of sense though: North Americans are familiar with five-door hatchbacks, such as the Ford Focus and the Mazda3 Sport, so it's not an odd-ball like the peculiar Mercedes-Benz C-Class Sport Coupe or the truncated BMW 3-Series Compact (no longer available). And while the additional 68 mm (2.7 inch) growth from the 3-door hatch doesn't go towards the interior volume, it benefits trunk space. Surprisingly, the V6 has caused the trunk to shrink to 302 litres (12.4 cu-ft) down from the FrontTrak's 370 litres (13.0 cu-ft). But, let's not forget the fact that back seat access is infinitely greater with an additional set of doors.
