The big test: 400 horsepower hatches
Once upon a time, 400bhp lived in the back of top-dog Ferraris. Now, you can find it tugging along £50,000 hatchbacks. World gone mad?
Well, I was born too late. When I dreamed of refereeing an 800bhp face-off, I pictured a Ferrari 360 battling a Porsche 911 Turbo, or a BMW M5 defending honour against the most unhinged Mitsubishi Evo FQ MR-WTF. Are these two rivals? An RS3 would be more heartland hyper-hatch, but it’s on hiatus for a couple of years while the A3 line-up is replaced. Audi’s current entry-level RS is this preposterously powerful posh Qashqai. Anyway, crossover-SUVs are busy monstering conventional hatches and devastating saloons. The landscape’s changing. Hot hatches and supersaloons don’t have the monopoly any more. Can the A45 defend it?
For your £50k – yes, these are £50,000 hatchbacks and that’s only a baseline – the Audi offers you more physical engine, but a smidge less power. The dumpy RSQ3 gives the 2.5-litre 5cyl engine a very unlikely home, where it develops 394bhp and 354lb ft.
The A45’s fiendishly clever, bespoke motor is a much less exotic 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo, but it’s the most powerful road-going four-pot in the world. It develops 416bhp and 369lb ft… briefly.
Though the RSQ3 gets numerically wedgied, it maintains its maximum power for longer. Peak torque is on hand at all times – from 1,950rpm to 5,850rpm. The A45 only musters full twist for a paltry 250rpm. So, it’s peaky.
Peaky, but exciting. This is a fascinating engine. Mercedes spun it around 180 degrees from the way the 2.0-litre engine in the cheaper A35 lies, so the turbo now lives at the back. Bad for cooling, great for shorter piping into the exhaust, to dissuade lag. Meanwhile, the cooling can be intelligently directed, AMG says, keeping the engine block warm (for lower friction) while keeping the head from getting a sweat on.
I’ve namechecked all that because, if you’re going to ship £56,570 – as tested – on an A-Class, you’ve really got to buy into what a special engine this is. If not, it’s tricky to reconcile
“CROSSOVER-SUV SALES ARE BUSY MONSTERING CONVENTIONAL HATCHES AND DEVASTATING SALOONS”
that price with the noise. Under full throttle load, approaching the 7,200 redline, there’s a proper Group N rally car bark to it, hard-edged and metallic. But when it’s blipped for a downshift, or merely idling, the A45’s strained, monotone motor lacks the sense of occasion its record-breaking spreadsheet deserves.
Mind you, the RSQ3 can get none too smug here. Even with a £1,000 sports exhaust fitted, its new emissions filters mean it sounds noticeably muffled if you’re used to, say, an RS3. Audi Sport has reacted by amping up the noise generation inside, Golf R-style. Somehow, that feels wrong here. Fine, give a four-banger some auto-tune – they sound harsh anyway. But a rally-bred straight-five warblemonster? The synthetic noise erodes the one thing a modernday Audi quattro should bleed – authenticity.
Thing is, the A45 also overpromises. Drift mode is a joke. Wait for sufficient engine and transmission oil temperature, select Race mode, turn the traction control off, pull both of the beautiful alloy shift paddles to option Drift mode, upshift to confirm… come on, you’re going to do that at the lights, are you? With the stability control turned off? In your £56k look-at-me bumblebee? Once or twice, to scare yourself, but don’t kid yourself you’d slew from bend to bend marmalising your tyres.
And yet… what the AMG’s complex set-up has done is made it a properly chuckable, forgiving and fun 4x4 hatch. Leave the stability control on, but select one of the hotter modes, turn your AMG Dynamics mode to Master or Pro, and the AMG settles into a joyous middle ground. Unlike a Golf R, or the old A45, or any hot Audi, it doesn’t just behave like a frontdrive car with infinite traction. You can prime the boost mid-corner and get the car to wiggle and straighten itself on the exit, revs flaring.
It’s not perfect, of course. Three ride modes, and all of them too firm. There’s an idiotic amount of duplication inside too. You can have four different real-time horsepower displays. Three satnav maps. Two rev counters. There are buttons to tweak the modes on the steering wheel, and the centre console, or you can do it in the touchscreen… it’s all needlessly convoluted.
In the Audi… I’m not so sure. It’s less maddingly over-the-top, but for a flagship RS car, does it feel noticeably better than your mum’s dentist’s hairdresser’s Q3? Nope. The tongue-like seats have no business in a 400bhp, £51,000 performance flagship. This one’s had an £850 RS design pack lobbed at it, so it’s as jazzy as an RSQ3 gets, but besides the hockey-stick rev counter there’s zero sense of occasion.
The basic cabin is less creaky than an A45’s chintzy cockpit, at least. But it’s not notably more spacious, visibility is worse and the boot is less useful than a non-Sportback Q3. Then we get to the options list. This RSQ3 has the lot. Ceramic brakes up front – with big power, but less pedal bite than the A45’s magnificent stoppers. It’s got a carbon engine cover and matrix LED main beams and a price,
as tested, of £66,605. For a Q3! This thing’s approaching Porsche Macan Turbo money.
There is only one box you Absolutely. Must. Tick. And that’s £995 for RS Sport Suspension Plus. As standard, the RSQ3 comes fitted with suspension made of arthritic bones. Frankly, it’s a scandal you have to throw another thousand pounds at Audi just so it’ll begrudgingly give it suspension that won’t give you concussion, but, suitably equipped, the RSQ3 actually approached ‘comfortable’.
Because it’s tall and compromised, your head’s tossed from side to side more than in the low-slung, purposeful-feeling A45. But with some dexterity to the damping at last, the RSQ3 can get stuck in to what fast Audis do best. Teleportation. Point A to point B, instantly. No fuss. No mess. Just ruthless pace. You don’t have memorable drives in the RSQ3, because it completes them too quickly for your brain to hit ‘record’.
And if you’re happy shelling out £50,000 for that superpower, then have at it. So long as it’s supplied on suspension that’s been declared fit for human consumption, the RSQ3’s just as competent, easy to pilot and outrageously quick as an RS3. I doubt the next RS3 will feel much different either. Hopefully, it’ll have a less jumpy gearbox, and less inert steering. And fake grilles. Less would be more, across the board.
I’d expected to find the (deep breath) AMG A45S 4Matic+ Plus – yeah, two plusses – a bit, well, OTT. But it wins this unlikely meeting of 400bhp rivals, because it’s an engineer’s fantasy that manages to translate its ridiculous R&D solutions into an everyman-pleasing experience. I defy you to not struggle out of its rock-hard bucket seat with a guilty grin plastered over your mug.
AMG has always been at its stellar best with a whiff of yob. The A45 is a thug. Not that anyone can honestly say they need a 400bhp hot hatch, right? I was born too late, but already I seem to be getting old.