German Roadsters - Audi TT - Comparison

Visually, the new TT is sharper-edged than its 1920s Bauhaus-based predecessor, but can you detect its bigger size? You'd hardly know it from a casual glance, but length's been stretched fully 5.4 inches and width by 3.1; the deception's probably due to the height's scant 0.3-inch rise, which confuses the proportions. Despite its size, the new TT Roadster is an impressive 190 pounds lighter due to a new 58/42-percent aluminum/steel chassis composition (the steel fraction is concentrated at the rear to offset the engine, which is largely cantilevered ahead of the front axle). Its zero-to-60 time has consequently shrunk by about three-quarters of a second to 5.7, a wink behind the Boxster.

Unleash Audi's new baby on some of our pretzeled San Jacinto Mountain roads, and your affection for the TT depends on what you ultimately intend to do with it. Inside, the car's even-cooler dash is punctuated again by the TT's trademark aluminum-ringed air vents, though the whole span appears to have spent serious sweat time on an ab machine. Raise the windows and wind blocker, and the cockpit's turbulence subsides enough to transform it into the world's hippest concert hall on warm summer evenings. Moreover, it provides an eerily comfortable ride over just about any rotten surface, while its six-speed S tronic (DSG) rev-matching transmission continues to be heroin to tap-happy fingers. And were snowflakes to throw a damper on the festivities, the TT's quattro system would free it to prance away, leaving the Z4 and Boxster to quarrel over the tow-truck haul.

However, as a hard-charging sports car, it wilts next to the Z4 and, more so, the Boxster. Turn up the velocity, and the TT's composure marshmallows; its everyday-ready steering becomes pinkie-light and feedback-vacuous. If the road appears transparent through the Boxster and translucent through the Z4, through the TT it's nearly opaque. Remember the Z4's sound at throttle tip-in? Do the same in the TT, and you'd hear: "...Fly me to the moon/and let me play among the stars..." Whoops, that's the Sinatra channel on its Sirius Radio; the Audi's engine is so quiet the radio tends to get turned up just to have something to hear.