Latest Audi TT RS makes use of five cylinders

23 September, 2016

data-animation-override>
“If you’re a fan of Group B rally, you’ll understand the excitement of the latest Audi TT RS. The five-cylinder engine is back and with more factory power than ever before”

Although I wave the Japanese flag day-to-day, a lot of you won’t know that my first road-going vehicle (not counting my paddock cars) was a 1989 Audi 90 Quattro. It featured a five-cylinder KV engine with 330,000 miles, a sagging roofline, and a few electrical gremlins.

I loved it though, and it was my very first project car. Being 15 years of age, I saved up for a set of lowering springs to be installed at Mag and Turbo, had a large ‘cannon-style’ muffler welded onto the back, and installed a vacuum gauge and subwoofer — all of the vital performance upgrades, sigh. After installing the large exhaust (as ugly as it was), it did give me a newfound love for Audi’s five-cylinder engines. A smooth, yet burbly note that you have to hear to understand. It was gutless, but it didn’t matter — it sounded incredible.

Audi has finally given us a glimpse at the latest TT RS model, and they’ve announced the five-cylinder it packs under the bonnet is a fire-breathing dragon with 400hp — that’s 270hp more than my old 90 Quattro. Why is this so exciting? Well, if you haven’t noticed, vehicle manufacturers the world over are ripping out engines they’re well known for and replacing them with more compact and efficient units — boring!

Think R35 GT-R, as they stopped production of the harmonious RB26 engine and replaced it with a trombone-sounding VR38 engine. Ford have also done the same thing by installing an economy-focused four-cylinder turbo engine into their Mustang — however, they did retain a V8 option.

RS Audis have always been bonkers, and they’ve always been a dream of mine to own. The Audi TT RS is no different; it has much stiffer suspension, added styling features, and, of course, the bonkers engine. How’s that interior? Nice, right? We haven’t driven one yet, so if you’re wanting to know how it drives, we can’t tell you. But it’d no doubt be mental with that much power.

Design accord

28 March, 2025

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

21 March, 2025

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.

Latest Audi TT RS makes use of five cylinders

Contact us

Sign up to New Zealand Classic Car's newseltter