Audi Rs3

My first Audi was a phantom black 2011 Audi S4 with a manual gearbox and a V8 under the hood. In 2013, I traded the S4 for a 2014 Audi RS5 Cabriolet, also with a V8 (this time 450 hp), but with a dual-clutch transmission and soft top (I still miss that S4 stick at times).

We don’t get as many hot hatches here in the US as I think we deserve, so we often have to live vicariously through folks in Europe to get our fix. Recently, the guys at UK car buying site carwow got their hands on five hot hatches and decided to line them up for a little drag race.

Audi RS3 LMS is an honest to goodness factory-built race car, and the coolest thing about it is that you can buy one if you want. All you need is about $111,000. The car is a special a racing version of the RS3, and is designed to run in the TCR touring car series.

We previewed Audi’s newest, incredibly powerful hot hatch the RS3 at the beginning of 2015, at which time it was still unknown if the automaker plans to make the vehicle available in the States. Although Audi has yet to announce whether the RS3 will make the trip across the pond, after seeing video of the blazing performance of this compact rocket, I desperately hope the ultimate answer is “yes.”