Audi RS Q3 Review ,full details from A to Z

Quattro GmbH’s quest to build a nominal range-topper for each and every one of Audi’s product lines continues apace.

With saloons, estates, coupés and cabriolets conquered, the industrious tuner has turned its attention to the Q-branded SUVs.

Rather than meet its rivals head on in the mid and large-size SUV segments, the bigwigs at Neckarsulm – compelled, no doubt, by Audi’s conveyor belt of product introductions and the growth of the market – have launched a compact SUV first in the Audi RS Q3, and, remarkably, found itself leading the charge.

With the BMW X1 currently unmolested by M division, the compact Mercedes-Benz SUV still in gestation and (so far) no Range Rover Evoque Sport in the running, there is nothing on the same rapidity scale as the new Audi.

Aside from the functional concept created to preview the RS Q3, Quattro GmbH has not previously recreated one of Audi’s SUVs in its own image.

The propulsive oddity that was the Q7 V12 TDI had been proposed as a suitable candidate for an RS badge, but the idea was apparently dismissed again almost as quickly.

Nevertheless, the division has a legacy of success with thick-set hardware of niche appeal. Its first road car was, after all, not the sinewy R8, but the decidedly boxy RS2.

By transplanting the 306bhp 2.5-litre, five-cylinder engine from the Audi RS3 – no great trick, given the shared bridgework – Audi has delivered a petrol powerhouse in an oil-burning sanctum.

All evidence suggests that the market will swell sufficiently to ingest such a model, but does that qualify it as trendsetter or unnecessary trade-off? Let’s find out.