EXCLUSIVE - Super Sporty Audi A3 Concept at Wörhthersee GTI Festival

By Henny Hemmes
Senior European Editor
The Auto Channel

INGOLSTADT, Germany, May 15. Audi will come to the Wörthersee Festival in Austria with a super sporty concept car, the 525 hp strong A3 clubsport quattro.

The Festival is well known among the fans of tuned Volkswagen models. Each year some two hundred thousand people gather with or without their GTI, or other Volkswagen models.

The annual festival was started 34 years ago by the fans and is run by the fans, with the Volkswagen Group as a participant as the festival grew bigger and bigger. Also the Audi, Seat and Skoda divisions have used the event to unveil sporty concepts.

Last year, Volkswagen presented the Design Vision GTI (see my drive report) the fastest Golf ever built, with all-wheel-drive and a 3.0-liter V6 twin turbo engine producing 503 hp and 413 pound-feet of torque.

The 2014 edition of the ‘GTI Treffen’, as the Festival is called in German, again gets a ‘hot’ car. It is the A3 clubsport quattro concept, an extremely sporty A3, based on the S3 sedan. The show car has a 2.5-liter 5-cylinder TFSI turbo engine with 386 kW/525 hp and 600 NM/ 443 lb-ft of maximum torque, which works together with a 7-speed S tronic double clutch transmission.

We know the base engine from the RS Q3, where it produces For the Concept it gets assistance of a large turbocharger with maximum 1.5 bar of boost pressure and with a modified inert cooler.

As the name already indicates the concept hints at a club sport edition for use on the race tracks. So it speaks for it self that the car has launch control to optimally make use of the torque and the distribution to all four wheels. The quattro awd system has been specially prepared to work with the high torque. The concept car sits on extremely low and fat 275/25 R21 tires, while carbon fiber-ceramic discs brakes (diameter 370 mm/14.5 in.) should be able to stop the Audi.

Most parts of the multi link rear wheel suspension are made of aluminum, while the suspension has been lowered by 0.4 inches and springs and dampers can be manually adjusted. ESC can be fully disconnected.

The steering gear of the concept is progressive, while torque vectoring helps the car to turn faster into corners by braking the inner wheels.

The concept has the unique Magnetic Blue color that ‘hides’ the CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastic) hood

The car weighs 1.527 kg/3.366 pounds and sprints in 3.6 second from 0-62 mph and reaches a top speed of 310 km/193 mph.

No wonder, Audi is expecting a huge crowd to come and check out the show car during the Festival, that runs from May 28-31.