By Peter Anderson
Starting at $49,900, Audi S1 is the priciest of the small-hatch based hotties, at least until Mini’s JCW arrives. This price is almost double that of VW stablemate’s forthcoming 2015 Polo GTI.
Standard on the manual and five-door only S1 is a 10-speaker stereo, climate control, ambient lighting, remote central-locking, cruise control, sat-nav, headlight washers, auto headlights with xenon low beams, partial leather seats, leather-bound steering wheel, auto wipers and rear parking sensors.
Options include the Quattro exterior package ($3990), which adds bi-xenon headlights with red trim, red brake calipers, spoiler, quattro logos on rear doors and five-spoke, 18-inch alloys that are part matt black, part polished.
The Quattro interior package ($2490) adds S Sport front seats with Nappa leather and red backrest capping, with quattro logo, more nappa around the cabin with contrast stitching, a flat bottom steering wheel and red rings on the air vents.
There’s an S performance package that brings the best of these two packs together for $4990, saving about $1500 and the embarrassment of the quattro logos.
Our test car also has aluminium air vents ($220), black contrasting boot lid ($300) and black roof ($720). The grand total is a sobering $58,610. There’s a couple more options that’ll easily pop you over $60,000.
Inside goes along the lines of the A3, with what are becoming Audi’s trademark – round eyeball air-con vents, the manual fold-down screen familiar to Q3 owners (but smaller) and a good clear dash. The handbrake jars slightly as it feels cheap to hold and wobbles a bit.
The S sport seats are big and comfortable and the top half of the backs are capped in plastic, which was colour-coded on our car.
Despite the five doors, the back seats are occasionals and the boot is very small but okay for shopping for couples or singles.
Infotainment is centred around Audi’s dash-mounted MMI. As ever, it works well and doesn’t take much getting used to. The sat-nav is a bit grainy on the smaller screen but is otherwise a competent unit.
Sound is from a ten-speaker stereo and you can stream across Bluetooth or plug in a memory card. The system did take a while to find the phone.
Under the bonnet there’s a relatively big 2.0-litre turbo-charged, four-cylinder engine that propels the S1 to 100km/h in 5.9 seconds.
It has an auto stop-start function when you’re stationary that helped deliver a pretty reasonable 10.2l/100km, but that’s a long way over claimed 7.1l/100km. All Audi S1s come with a six-speed manual, so dual-clutch haters can save the whining.
It’s a bit difficult to justify the price – in its basic form, it’s missing a few creature comforts that you’d expect in a $50,000 car – reversing camera, high-res screen, that sort of thing.
However, in the hot hatch world, those things don’t matter. It has the bragging rights, the tech and the speed to take on the Focus ST, the Megane RS and even the Audi S3.
