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"The previous Audi A3, a low-roofed Golf, played well only in markets where space doesn&amp;#039;t equate to wealth. Crammed cities, that is, like San Francisco and, oh, most of the rest of the world.  As hatchback fans, we&amp;#039;re sad to see it go. But we understand that Audi needs an entry-level sedan if it&amp;#039;s to meet its ambitious volume targets in the US. They didn&amp;#039;t need to kill off the hatch (it&amp;#039;s coming here as a plug-in hybrid only\u2014boring!), but the consolation is this handsome sedan.  The new A3, like the sharp-looking third-generation TT that debuted at last week&amp;#039;s Geneva Motor Show, rides on Volkswagen Group&amp;#039;s transverse-engine MQB architecture. That means the A3 is effectively a VW Golf with a trunk and an Audi badge.  That, my friends, is a very good thing, as the Golf feels like it&amp;#039;s worth twice its sticker price. The base A3 comes with front-drive and the group&amp;#039;s new 170-hp 1.8-liter turbo four. One step up is our test car: the 2.0T Quattro, which, as you can imagine, uses a 220-hp 2.0-liter turbo four and all-wheel drive. That should make this A3, on paper, a four-wheel-drive GTI sedan.  Notice I used the word &amp;quot;should.&amp;quot;  READ THIS: 2015 Audi S3 First Drive   First, let&amp;#039;s talk about looks: The A3&amp;#039;s front and rear ends are stunning, and its modern LED-and-xenon lighting immediately announces its expensive presence at night. But on the road, the car doesn&amp;#039;t look nearly as sophisticated\u2014its proportions are tall and narrow, and its profile is quite bland.  Several onlookers went so far as to call it &amp;quot;Corolla-ish&amp;quot; from the side. Indeed, our non-sport package A3 had so much gap between the wheel and fender that we actually looked to see if something was wrong. (Nothing was.) And the nouveau fender detailing that looked good on the show stand (and the S3, with its dramatically lowered stance and big wheels) doesn&amp;#039;t work with small wheels and enormous wheel gap. More than one person thought it looked like an A3 Allroad that had lost its body cladding.  Then you climb into the A3, and you&amp;#039;re struck by its modern, simple, clean design. Literally\u2014you&amp;#039;ll smash your head on the B-pillar on your way in. The A3&amp;#039;s seating position is bizarre and unlike any of the other MQB cars we&amp;#039;ve driven: You sit uncomfortably high. Six out of the seven of us who drove the car felt that the seat&amp;#039;s lowest position should be as high as it goes\u2014and needed it to go down at least a few more inches. And all of us thought the seat was uncomfortable.  Even when telescoped all the way out, the steering wheel is a far reach. Worse, drivers over about six feet tall found that they were seated directly inboard of the B-pillar, and as a result could see nothing to their sides.   On the bright side, if you&amp;#039;re four-foot eleven and have been searching for that elusive compact luxury sedan, then search no more.  Once you&amp;#039;re used to the clutter-free dash and its dominant, expensive-feeling vents, the interior begins to look a bit charming. Like, in that cheeky European-rental-car way: cute at first, then perhaps a bit gimmicky. We would happily, for example, forgo some of the ambient interior lighting for a keyless-go system or a reverse camera, both of which are far more useful. And both of which we expect at our tester&amp;#039;s $36,645 price.  The A3&amp;#039;s infotainment screen is Jetsons-thin and rises from the dashtop like something from the future\u2014and it displays an updated version of MMI, controlled by the familiar circular controller on the center console. A new powerful chipset gives MMI the processing power to handle moving graphics such as a high-resolution image of the car that rotates around as you select various functions.  For the first time, MMI uses toggle switches to select various functions, and that works brilliantly and doesn&amp;#039;t force you to take your eyes off the road. MMI is still missing dedicated radio preset buttons, but it has a cool, useful touchpad atop the controller for navigation address entry. Win some, lose some. WATCH THIS: Watch Audi throw the S3 against a Sport Quattro   The base 10-speaker sound system won&amp;#039;t win any awards, even among some economy cars, but happily there&amp;#039;s an available 705-watt, 14-speaker Bang &amp;amp;amp; Olufsen system that should fix it.  The new 2.0T is an absolute monster, and this little Audi ripped to 60 mph in a jaw-droppingly fast 5.5 seconds. This engine suffers from a good deal more turbo lag than the GTI we drove in Europe, and a quick look under the engine cladding revealed some differences. Most notably, the lack of supplemental port injection. Happily, the 2.0T retains all of the refinement we&amp;#039;ve come to expect from VW group engines, with just a little rumble under load at low rpm\u2014a situation caused by the transmission&amp;#039;s aggressive fuel-economy-minded programming.  The six-speed dual-clutch automatic is the only transmission available, and it takes a rather significant step back in shift quality and response from the previous Volkswagen Group unit. Our A3 was a very early-production unit, and we&amp;#039;ll keep our fingers crossed that Audi will have a software update to fix it before the car is in dealerships. Ditto the four-wheel-drive system, which allows a good deal of front wheelspin before sending power to the rear axle. That can be, and probably should have been, addressed with predictive logic.   Our A3&amp;#039;s brake pedal was uncharacteristically nonlinear, made worse by sudden changes in assist as the transmission downshifted through its gears on its way to a stop. The electric-assist steering is somewhat light at normal speeds but turns into a 1970s Cadillac as you slow to parking speeds, allowing big maneuvers with one finger and just the slightest of effort. If you like that thing (we typically don&amp;#039;t), great. We suspect that if you like that thing, you might also be four-foot eleven.  Speaking of the vertically challenged, they&amp;#039;ll fit great in the backseat. Even average-sized people will find the backseat acceptable for short trips, as it offers good headroom for those under six feet, very good outward visibility, and about as much legroom as you&amp;#039;d expect from a small, 175.5-inch-long sedan.  The A3&amp;#039;s ride is better than you&amp;#039;d expect for a small car, though the short wheelbase&amp;#039;s inherent pogo motions can&amp;#039;t be completely eliminated at highway speeds. And while it&amp;#039;s not involving to drive, the A3 sure is quick. And it comes standard with leather seating and a large glass sunroof that brightens the interior tremendously. READ THIS: Designer Danny Garand explains Audi S3 styling   On the outside, the sunroof surround fills the full width of the roof and is also smoked glass\u2014so the whole front roof section appears black no matter what color the car. Typically, cars with this setup have roofs made entirely of the stuff, but the A3&amp;#039;s black part stops at the rear of the sunroof and then is painted metal from there rearward. If the car is painted a light color and you&amp;#039;re taller than, say, four-foot-eleven, it&amp;#039;s something you may notice every time you walk up to the car.  Seeing a theme here? After spending a couple of days in the A3, it&amp;#039;s clear that the electronic gadgets and lighting are there to generate impulse purchases, and the car is missing some of the equipment that more sophisticated shoppers might require. (Or indeed begin to miss once they&amp;#039;ve gotten home.) We see a car that offers lots of refinement and speed but little involvement and lacking comfort. We see a car that&amp;#039;s stunning in its front and rear styling, but that doesn&amp;#039;t continue to impress when you look at the details (fender openings, wheel gap, the roof). And we see a car that just doesn&amp;#039;t fit American-sized drivers.  Actually, what we see is a car aimed more directly at the Chinese market than it is at ours. That&amp;#039;s not to say that the A3 won&amp;#039;t work in America. On the contrary, given its styling, price, Audi badge, and power alone, we think the A3 will sell well. But where Audi&amp;#039;s other products tend to get even better the more you live with them, the closer we looked at the A3, the more we wanted to look elsewhere. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/road-tests/reviews/a7315/web-drive-2015-audi-a3-20t-quattro/>