Guess what, a brand new-segment has been born, for Audi’s new A3 is the first compact sedan in the luxury segment. It’s priced fairly well and it has what it takes to win the crowd
Story: Aninda Sardar
Photography: Sanjay Raikar
So far as my understanding of the automotive market goes, the A3 might just be one of the smartest moves made by Audi this year. You see, if you happened to have around Rs 30-35 lakh to spend on a car and if you were looking for something more upmarket than the Škoda Superb or Volkswagen Jetta, then your options were limited to the BMW 1 Series and the Mercedes A-Class. However, if you were really keen on a sedan in that price bracket from one of the three German luxury car-makers, you had absolutely nothing. Until now, that is, which means Audi have effectively created a brand-new segment for themselves and, therefore, by default a bit of a monopoly in that segment.
The car itself looks very similar to any of the sedans sporting the four rings. In fact, if you’re not careful, you might even mistake it to be the A4. Yes, the A3 does look larger from the outside and especially from a distance than it really is. The first time I saw the car (it was a display unit that Audi had put up on the lawns of the Oberoi Udai Vilas in Udaipur where the media drive had been organised), I thought it was a very good-looking car, except for the wheels. The 205/55 R16 wheels that the display car was shod with did not seem to fill the wheel-wells as snugly as they should have. The next morning, though, such thoughts were put paid to. The cars we drove were S-Line diesels fitted with 225/45 R17 tyres on nice-looking five-spoke alloys. From the outside the car looks dynamic with typical Audi lines, a wide and low-slung stance with a flowing roof-line that ends in a short boot that makes the A3 look sporty.
The in-cabin experience is again signature Audi with that pop-up screen on an otherwise neat dash, the round clocks with multi-information display between the two roundels and the very positive feeling scroll buttons on the meaty four-spoke steering wheel. However, the blower vents for the dual-zone climate control unit are new. They are shaped like jet turbines with the centre turbine knob doubling up as a switch that allows the user to set the blower to a diffused setting or one where the air-con blast is focused on wherever the user wants it. A smart-looking bezel ring around the blower vent, finished in polished silver, acts as a rotary switch to control air-flow or even shut it.
