2009 Audi A3

The chunky, little A3 has delivered some solid sales results for Audi throughout Europe, offering as it did, an relatively inexpensive entry into the prestigious Audi range, giving buyers that piece of mind in terms of quality, reliability and safety that is generally associated with the German VAG brand.

And like the Golf it’s probably only a matter of time before the new car buying public take to the good things the A3 can offer, much as they are starting to with the similarly-sized Volkswagen.

The A3 is based on the out-going MK5 Golf chassis, but that’s not a bad thing as the MK5 Golf chassis is an accomplished one, and Audi have made good use of the dimensions build a car, that looks well-proportioned on the outside and offer some good, useable space on the inside. 

The A3 looks distinctly Audi with that trademark deep and square front grille matching its bigger brothers and efficiently clean, crisp styling throughout the body shell. The German flavour for car design and styling is a distinctive one, and for many buyers it is a style that they find to be understatedly pleasant. Solid and well-formed; the A3 not only looks well-built and safe, it is well-built and safe, boasting ABS (anti-lock brakes), front and side airbags, as well as electronic stability assistance devices.

The main Audi A3 models now available here in the UAE are a 1.8-litre and a 2-litre, 4-cylinder, petrol engines making 160bhp and 200Nm and 200bhp and 280Nm of torque, respectively. Both engines benefit immensely from the addition of exhaust-driven turbochargers that boost the low-end torque greatly, without sacrificing too much in the way of fuel efficiency.

Top speed performance is also very respectable, again thanks to that turbo powering-up the engine horsepower. Audi make some very nice, drivable small capacity engines; well worth a look on your test drive list.

The engines are combined with a front-wheel-drive delivery and excellent dual-clutch automatic gearboxes that also offer manual gear changes via the gear stick or steering wheel paddles. The relatively lightweight of the A3 makes for an exciting, dynamic driving package.

That understated yet pretty body shell is only available here in five-door format, a bit of a shame really as the three-door looks just great. Standard features include four-wheel disc brakes, 16-inch alloy wheels, automatic climate control, power windows, power locks with keyless remote, cloth seats and a CD player.

Like all of the Audi range, the options list is long and quite expensive, but you can spec your car pretty much any way you like it. 

Specification

Price Range (AED) 106,500 onwards