First impressions of the RS3, aside from in sheer efficiency metrics, positively impressed. The inside design now emphasizes quantity and luxury rather more than the era I grew accustomed to driving again then. A stark imaginative and prescient of luxurious all through helps that sensibility, with a minimalist heart console and sprint design proper all the way down to the mid-sized infotainment display screen and reductive gear selector—the latter most likely being my second largest gripe.

Hey, we have got wi-fi Apple CarPlay on the very least. Welcome to the trendy period! Hexagonal honeycomb quilted leather-based seats, carbon-fiber trim all through, and a configurable gauge cluster that modifications layouts relying on drive mode spherical out the facilities. One peculiar element that stood out at first really wound up on my record of professionals: the extraordinarily thin-rimmed, easy steering wheel with minimal buttons and dials as distraction.

I fiddled by way of the drive modes on the way in which out of city, hoping to determine which mixture I preferred greatest earlier than really arriving to any winding roads. After some melodramatic pops and burbles at startup, each the Comfort and Auto modes prompted early shifts from the transmission to maintain the engine quiet and sedate at low revs, with the suspension and steering fairly tame, too.