2004 Audi TT 3.2 Quattro Coupe - Engine, Chassis, Dimensions, Price & Performance - Road Test Review

With the shifter lazily left in drive, the DSG simulates a well-behaved automatic. At shift time, the DSG's twin multiplate clutches simultaneously release and engage in a synchronized electrohydraulic dance, seamlessly alternating the power's route between two shafts, one spinning gears 1, 3, and 5, the other, 2, 4, and 6. Imagine these clutches as your hands, your left tightening as your right opens, and vice versa, back and forth. As one shaft is delivering power, the other is proactively engaging the next probable gear, meaning it's ready and waiting for the clutches to trade workloads again. Adding to the choreography is the throttle-by-wire-controlled engine that revs or slows to match each new ratio.

Now thread your own fingers behind the steering wheel's left and right spokes (there's only about an inch gap between them and the control stalks). A finger tap on the left paddle overrides the automatic to command a downshift; a right click delivers an upshift. Do nothing further, and in 10 seconds automatic mode resumes. What's slick here is the seamless manner in which you can temporarily enter manual mode--just click a paddle.

If you decide to be more than a manual-shift interloper, nudge the shifter to the right (where there's an alternative fore/aft toggle slot), and start firing away with the paddles. Based on our iffy internal stopwatch, shifts seem to take about a third of a second per click, but sometimes noticeably longer if you've requested an unanticipated gear (meaning it hasn't been pre-engaged). Our only nitpick is that the operation of the plastic paddles feels more like playing an electronic game than, say, the mechanical authenticity of Ferrari's F1 gun-trigger shifters.

Under more casual driving circumstances, you'll notice that the TT traverses road irregularities with sports-car-acceptable thuds, a test of your bottom's tolerance, but one that's forgiven and forgotten the instant you stop and climb out. Likely, this TT 3.2's new 17-inch wheels contribute to the thumping, as do the revised spring and damper settings and immense (i.e., heavy) brakes sourced from the European RS 4. What the performance gods giveth (0.86 g around the skidpad), the ride gods taketh away.

The gods of finance, however, will expect a minimum of $39,900 (plus a $690 destination charge) for the opportunity to own this creme de la creme TT. And for it, you'll be visually distinguished from lesser TTs by such trimmings as an aluminum shifter base, a revised front apron with larger air openings, and Xenon headlights. Want to spend more? Another $3000 buys you a drop-top roadster version. But who has time to enjoy trivial distractions such as the wind and the sun when you're busy having so much fun shifting?