2025 Audi RS 3 is a Modern Classic Hyper Hatch With the Heart of a Lamborghini

With a 5-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine under the bonnet that sounds like a Lamborghini V10 and a trick Quattro system that makes it fun to drive, the 2025 Audi RS 3 Sportback will go down in history as one of the great hot hatches.

Pros	Cons
One of the best-sounding engines ever fitted to a production car, with huge character and performance	Expensive entry price, with options quickly pushing it well beyond $110K
Brilliant chassis balance and updated Quattro system make it exceptionally fun and capable to drive	Interior shares too much with the far cheaper Audi A3, with noticeable cost cuts in the rear seats

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Volkswagen has continued to close the gap between its flagship VW Golf R and the RS 3, which share the same general underpinnings. However, this four-ringed sleeper hatch has two features that the Volkswagen does not—one of the best sounding engines ever put in a car under the bonnet and enough badge-cred to convince the executives that you’re not going through a crisis.

Still, the only thought going through my head was that this experience would soon come to an end. Not because I’d have to hand the keys back, but because the 2.5-litre 5-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, which produces 294kW of power, 500 Nm of torque, and can reach 100 km/h in 3.8 seconds, will be discontinued with the arrival of Euro 7 emissions regulations. I consider this a last-chance drive and a last-chance buy for anyone interested in this 5-cylinder greatness.

Price

Priced from AUD$104,800 before on-road costs, the 2025 Audi RS 3 Sportback doesn’t come cheap.

Its competitors include the BMW M240i xDrive, priced from AUD$99,900 plus on-road costs, or the even more expensive BMW M2, from AUD$123,900 plus on-road costs. Mercedes-AMG also offers the Mercedes-AMG A 45 S Hatch Edition R+, priced at AUD$122,500 plus on-road costs. However, it’s based on an aging platform, and you pay more money without the 5-cylinder turbocharged engine.

My test car was fitted with 19-inch Audi Sport alloy wheels in a 10-cross-spoke design, and a very special (and expensive) Audi Exclusive Matt effect paint finish, which costs $11,400. That brought the as-tested price to a not-so-cheap AUD$117,600 before on-road costs are considered.

Interior

Not much has changed on the interior, and that means you still get the same 12.3-inch Audi virtual cockpit plus with Sport, Performance, and Runway views, which were already standard. However, a new rev counter is located in the centre of the instrument cluster, displaying the RPMs. This is similar to the digital display found in the brand’s high-end performance models, including the RS Q8 performance.

On either side of this centre rev counter display are readouts for power output, torque, g-forces, acceleration, and lap times. RS-specific blinking shift indicator changes the rpm display from green to yellow to red, which is a nice sporty touch.

Multimedia is handled by the 10.1-inch touch display located in the centre of the dashboard. This is where your wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are displayed, as well as the temperature ranges of coolant, torque splitter, brakes, engine oil, and transmission oil, all shown in colour if you’re on a racetrack or a particularly sporty driving scenario where this information could be helpful.

It’s essential to note that while the 2025 Audi RS 3 boasts unique trims and finishes, it shares its interior with the standard Audi A3, which is priced from AUD$54,800 before on-road costs.

Sure, it offers sports seats and Dinamica trims, coloured stitching as optional upgrades and the rest, but it’s a fairly barebones experience for the price. You can dress up the front area with carbon fibre and other special materials that make the cabin “feel” more premium than it otherwise would. Move to the rear seats, and you start to notice a fairly egregious amount of cost-cutting, with hard, scratchy plastics that you wouldn’t find on a car costing half this price.

You get the impression that you’re paying a lot of money for an engine, gearbox, and Quattro AWD system. Then, all is forgiven when you hit the accelerator pedal, and you forget about how scratchy the plastics are in the rear seats.

Driving

This is an exceptional experience, and you realise it from the moment the 2.5 TFSI engine from Audi Sport wakes up with 294 kW (400 PS) and a maximum torque of 500 Newton-meters.

While the 0 to 100 km/h acceleration in 3.8 seconds is impressive, as is the 290 km/h top speed, it’s the updates the brand has made to the chassis that stand out. It’s the icing on the cake, the finishing touch, or the crowning glory of this hyper hatch, knowing that you not only have a great engine and gearbox underneath you, but also an excellent chassis that makes the driving experience even more enjoyable.

Hardware has remained the same, with a Quattro AWD system that can send up to 50 per cent of the available torque to either of the rear wheels. Still, with a further developed algorithm, the interaction of this torque splitter, electronic stability control, wheel-selective torque control (brake torque vectoring), and the adaptive dampers of the RS sport suspension reacts even more quickly to the respective driving situations.

Behind the wheel, I noticed a more agile turn-in, with less tendency to understeer, and in a more controlled manner. This is mainly due to the trick brake torque vectoring system, which has finely tuned brake interventions on the inside wheels to carve through the corner’s radius more precisely than before.

The good news is that you can’t really tell that any of this is happening from behind the wheel, and the car simply feels more capable, avoiding understeer at the entrance to the corner and turning in more willingly.

When you want to have more fun, the rear end can get pretty lively thanks to this updated technology, and small slides can be initiated by simply turning the steering wheel. Previously, you would have to coax the rear end around under heavy braking, or with a firm stab of the loud pedal on corner exit. Now, you can stand on the optional carbon ceramic brakes, tip the nose in with confidence, and then balance the rear end and the slip like you would a TCR racecar.

Not only is it more fun to drive for the owner, but it’s also more capable. Frank Stippler set a new lap record on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife with a time of 7:33.123 minutes, beating the previous record in this class by more than five seconds. To put that in perspective, a 2022 Honda Civic Type R (FL5) held a record of 7:43.8 in a pre-production model.

Finally, once you’ve wrapped your head around the cornering ability of the car, the sound reminds you of why you bought this vehicle in the first place.

Based on the signature 1-2-4-5-3 firing sequence, where the adjacent and non-adjacent cylinders fire alternately, it’s as much a musical instrument as it is an engine. This sound only becomes more dynamic in RS Performance and RS Torque Rear modes, where the exhaust flap control has been optimised between 2,200 and 3,500 rpm to produce an even richer sound. Heaven in a hatchback!

Verdict

It’s a sobering thought that 2026 marks both the 50th anniversary of the 5-cylinder engine at Audi and its likely demise.

The five-cylinder engine debuted in 1976 in the Audi 100 with 136 PS. Today, it has been developed into a fire-breathing 2.5 TFSI with 400 PS and 500 Nm of torque, hand-assembled at the Bock plant in Győr, Hungary. It produces one of the best sounds of any car, and has the character to match. Still, when you place it inside a relatively lightweight, technologically advanced hot hatch like the RS 3 Sportback, it’s destined to be a winning formula the likes of which we rarely see.

Launched in 2011, approximately 80,000 units of the compact sports car have been produced, with most of them coming off the production lines in the last two years.

It’s not exactly “rare,” by collector standards. However, if this marks the end of the Audi 5-cylinder turbocharged engine line, the 2025 RS 3 is an outstanding send-off. Except for the likely special editions commemorating its 50th anniversary, this is a bona fide modern classic.

2025 Audi RS 3 Full List of Specifications

Standard Specifications

• 10.1-inch MMI navigation plus touchscreen infotainment system
• 12.3-inch Audi RS virtual cockpit plus digital instrument cluster
• 15-speaker, 680W Sonos 3D sound system
• 19-inch Audi Sport wheels (5-spoke Y-style, matte black)
• Adaptive suspension
• Black exterior styling package plus
• Carbon atlas inlays
• Colour ambient lighting package pro
• DAB+ digital radio
• Digital daytime running lights
• Flat-top and bottom RS Sport steering wheel with satellite buttons
• Head-up display
• Heating for front seats
• Matrix LED headlights (darkened)
• Panoramic glass sunroof with integrated sun blind
• Premium paint (excluding Ascari Blue)
• Rear privacy glass
• Red brake calipers
• RS sport seats in fine Nappa leather with honeycomb stitching and RS embossing
• RS sports exhaust
• Stainless steel pedals
• Tri-zone climate control
• Tyre repair kit
• Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
• Wireless phone charger

Options

• 19-inch Audi Sport alloy wheels, 10-cross-spoke – Black metallic: $1200
• 19-inch Audi Sport alloy wheels, 10-cross-spoke – Silk matt grey: $1400
• Ascari Blue metallic paint (Audi Sport): $650
• Carbon package: $7400
  • Front bumper side blades and side sill inlays
  • Exterior mirror housings
  • Rear diffuser inlay
  • Roof edge spoiler (Sportback)
  • Tailgate spoiler (Sedan)
• Inlays in Dinamica microfibre – Black: $850
• Inlays and instrument panel accent surfaces in carbon atlas: $1900
• RS ceramic brake system: $10,800
  • Available with Anthracite Grey, Blue, or Red calipers
• RS design package plus – Green: $2150
  • Centre bar on air vents in Micrommata Green, controller in gloss black
  • Floor mats in black with Micrommata Green contrast stitching and RS logo on front mats
  • Seat belts in black with green edges
  • Seat shoulders in Dinamica microfibre, Micrommata Green
  • Steering wheel rim in Dinamica microfibre with Micrommata Green stitching
• RS design package plus – Red: $2150
  • Centre bar on air vents in Express Red, controller in gloss black
  • Floor mats in black with Express Red contrast stitching and RS logo on front mats
  • Seat belts in black with red edges
  • Seat shoulders in Dinamica microfibre, Express Red
  • Steering wheel rim in Dinamica microfibre with Express Red stitching

Colours

• Arkona White
• Ascari Blue metallic*
• Daytona Grey pearl
• Kemora Grey metallic
• Kyalami Green
• Mythos Black metallic
• Progressive Red metallic
• Python Yellow metallic

*Ascari Blue metallic is a $650 option. Audi also offers a range of Audi Exclusive finishes upon request, including Daytona Grey with a matte effect ($11,400).