Heritage
There’s the history of the Audi TT, and the history of the brand’s halo RS performance division to consider here, because to understand both is to understand how their mixture creates a car that is greater than the sum of its parts.
The Audi TT sports car, a dinky two-seater, was shown in concept form in 1995, and went on sale in 1998, with the convertible version, the roadster, arriving a year later. The idea behind it was a sports car “with high suitability for everyday use”. Audi introduced its dual-clutch transmission, the S tronic, on the first TT, and power went up to 250 horsepower.
In 2006 the second wave arrived, with the addition to the line-up of an S version and later, as Audi called it, “a true athlete”, the Audi TT RS, with power at 340 horsepower.
Audi’s RS badge is relatively new: it started life 25 years ago, in 1994, on the RS2 Avant. It was the baby of Audi’s Quattro GmbH performance division, and the two letters stand for RennSport – Racing Sport. In a stroke of genius, the first few models to bear the RS badge were all estates, thus successfully marketing a thoroughbred, petrolhead ideal to the family- and lifestyle-focused consumer masses. In 2009, however, looking towards Porsche and the Cayman, Audi whacked those letters, and an heathy dose of power, on its TT sports car. Et voila.