Slice of city life
Audi’s new A1 Citycarver is a fast mover
WHAT on earth is a citycarver, I hear you ask? Well, in Audi’s world, it’s an A1 dressed up as a compact crossover, in much the same way as Ford’s Fiesta Active.
The ride height is 50mm higher than the standard A1 Sportback, there are plastic mouldings on the wheel arches, protection plates beneath the front and rear bumpers, and the hexagonal-style grille that features on all Audi’s Q-range SUVs (and why they didn’t just call it the Q1 and be done with it remains a mystery). All in all, it’s nicely pimped and, at first glance, you might even be fooled into thinking it’s an off-roader.
It’s not. There’s no 4x4 available, so what you get is the same frontwheel drive set-up as the Sportback. Not that this is a bad thing, because with the 116hp 1.0-litre there-cylinder TFSI engine, this is a sprightly little thing, eager to please if just a little shouty with it — there’s more engine and road noise apparent than I expected.
That is one of the few drawbacks, though, because over the course of a week, I came to really enjoy the Citycarver, which is aptly named. In urban areas, its stumpy length at just over four metres is a huge plus when it comes to finding parking, and for reasons oddly inexplicable to me, others drivers seemed more courteous when letting me out of side roads. Maybe they just wanted a better look at its cheeky stance, augmented on my test car by the shiny Misano Red paint job with contrasting black roof.
In fact, in every area of the looks department, it’s a lovely car, with swooshy LED headlights, gently rising beltline and recessed exhaust, and a slightly smaller than usual rear window that ties the lines of the glasshouse together very tidily indeed.
ON back roads, travel is a little looser, thanks to that higher ride height and the 17-inch wheels. In corners, it’s not as tight and focused as the standard A1, but it’s not exactly skittish either, just a little less precise.
Inside, all is good too. There’s nice cloth upholstery, plenty of storage space and, best of all, an infotainment screen flush with the fascia but gently angled to the driver, making for easy checking even while driving. All the connectivity you would expect too, with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
Standard safety features include lane departure warning, Audi Pre-sense front, hill hold assist, light and rain sensor, and adaptive steering.
You also get rear parking sensors, cruise control, ISOFIX child seat mounting for the outside rear seats, aircon, auto-dimming rearview mirror and so on.
My test car brought a lot of optional extra to the party, including that contrasting roof, dualzone climate control, interior ambient lighting, the virtual cockpit display, heat insulating glass, drive mode select, and an upgraded sound system, raising the total price by €3,748 to €34, 181. How many of those toys you would want is up to you.
As for the boot, it’s pretty decent, with 339 litres of space, expandable to 1,090 litres with the rear seats folded.
The claimed fuel consumption is 5.2 litres per 100km in combined urban and extra-urban driving; certainly, none of my journeys seemed to make much of an impact on the fuel gauge. With emissions of 119g/km, you’re looking at annual motor tax of €200.
Audi is in pretty great shape at the moment, with a car in pretty much every segment, and lots of electrification on the way — I’m booked into the new e-tron Sportback in January, and look forward to seeing if they’ve managed to deliver a slightly more dependable long range on a single charge.
It also is the premium brand still in the Top 10 for sales, with a 4.01% share of the total market, up by one-tenth of a percentage on last year despite these troubling times we’re in.
The A1 citycarver will help drive that higher, I imagine, because it is a tremendously neat package that manages to deliver on its ambitions, weaving its way through the urban jungle with the assuredness of a padding tiger.
Audi has aimed it squarely at the youth market, but personally, if I were of an age to retire and trade down, it would be very high on my shopping list too.
Not as bulky as an SUV, but still solid and chunky in looks, it offers the best of both worlds and it’s a lot more fun than the offerings from many of the mainstream brands. I liked it.