Our first impressions of Audi's new A3 compact luxury saloon.
The luxury hatchback is the new flavour of the month. Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and BMW are all tripping over each other to grab a share of this new segment. The A-class was launched with much fanfare, the V40 Cross Country (essentially a hatchback with SUV pretensions) is Volvo’s big bet and BMW too is hoping for good sales with the 1-series, which is due this September.
Conspicuous by its absence in this segment is Audi. It’s not that the VW Group’s luxury brand doesn’t have a model to offer. In fact, the
Audi A3 hatchback got a complete makeover just a year ago, so it’s fresh enough to take on the competition. But Audi has no plans to launch the A3 five-door hatch, or ‘Sportback’ as it is called, just yet (a reason why we haven’t bothered to do a review) because the company doesn’t think there’s a big enough market for it. According to Audi, a hatchback isn’t viewed as premium enough in the eyes of Indian car buyers and to get them to open their wallets for one is a lot harder than for a similarly priced SUV or saloon.
However, Audi isn’t going to let the competition get away without a fight and has come forward with a rather compelling response in the form of the A3 saloon. This junior luxury saloon, which we expect to be aggressively priced, takes the fight to not just the 1-series and A-class, but beyond. In fact, it will go head-on against Mercedes’ CLA compact luxury saloon, which is expected in 2014, around the same time as the Audi. The BMW 1-series is still not offered in saloon form.