Latest Audi TT RS makes use of five cylinders

23 September, 2016

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“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.

1986 Pontiac Firebird

9 October, 2025

Seeing the car with his own eyes already had Scott fizzing, but when the curator of the car let Scott sit in the driver’s seat it became a truly unforgettable day. There was no way Bo and Duke’s orange stunt jumper could compete with this. To top it off, a photograph of him sitting in the car turned up in the local paper, so he started a new school with an added aura as the kid in the Knight Rider car.
Scott still thought about the Knight Rider car from time to time, but if he had not gone with his wife Abbey to the Selwyn Motor Fest in 2018, it may have remained just a treasured memory. At the show, Abbey asked Scott what his favourite car was as they ambled round. The man she had married instantly connected with his nine-year-old self, but in a deeper voice he said, “KITT from Knight Rider”. Had she just said, “That’s nice dear,” and left it at that, life might have continued as normal. However, unaware of the hole she was about to start digging, she said that she had never heard of it.

Blueprinting basics

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You occasionally hear petrol heads tossing around the term ‘blueprinting’ when referring to an engine they have assembled, and have sometimes altered significantly. What they are probably trying to say is that their engine was carefully machined to optimum tolerances and balanced — probably for racing. But that isn’t what the term meant originally. You see, in the 1950s, when US stock car race cars really had to be stock, the racing teams would go to the factories and rummage through the parts bins until they found components that were closest in tolerance to the original blueprint developed by the engine’s designers.

Latest Audi TT RS makes use of five cylinders

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