Audi A3 saloon

It is a sign of the times that give a car maker a sliver of a hint or a slight sniff of a trend and one can be rest assured that the product planners would hammer the designers and engineers to churn up something to slot into the thinnest of niches and then go about expanding this to attain the critical mass so very much needed for commercial success/survival, call it what you will.









The Audi A3 saloon is a product of this thought process as much as it has to do with Mercedes-Benz having been quick off the mark with its CLA saloon hewn out of the same third-generation A-class mould. So if Stuttgart could go down this avenue laughing all the way to the bank could Ingolstadt afford to be far behind? One might say how could this happen, don’t Mercedes and Audi have their C-class and A4 already pegging this space? Enter the marketing spooks who now hanker for a slightly lower perch from the C-class / A4 set, a segment which now goes by the predominantly Teutonic term ‘sport limousine’ when for all to see and understand is just that it is another sedan!Of course that would be missing the point because this is a car which Audi is planning to bring to India once the rupee has gone back to sensible levels vis-à-vis the dollar but how long that would take is best known to nobody!

Even then Audi India gave us a day to experience this all new A3 saloon in and around Gyor (where it is built) and Budapest in Hungary and I must say that this niftily styled automobile is not just fresh yet different while retaining the Audi DNA in its makeup but its compact dimensions do not make it any less practical for occupants in space, comfort and performance.Audi, unlike Mercedes-Benz, already had identified the bandwidth it wished to explore between the A4 at the upper end and the A3 Sportback at the lower end so slotting in a saloon rendition of the A3 seemed to be just what the good doctor ordered! And with saloons having pride of place in snobbish high growth markets in Asia like China as well as in the US, growing just that much bigger but not as much as the A4 was the way to go.

The overall lines clearly spell out the Audi look and feel (inspired no doubt by the A3 e-tron concept from 2012) and when coupled to a lean persona bereft of the traditional Ingolstadt heft associated with its designs, the new A3 sport limousine is impressive.