Photo: CarPix
The Audi TT RS is a very weird proposition of a car: it's so damn cute, but also so damn fast. The 2+2 sports car is basically unique in the market right now, which means Audi can pretty much do what it wants with it without worrying about the competition.
In 2014, the third generation TT was launched sporting the brand's redesigned front end and more angular lines, but the RS model followed two years later. That makes the current TT RS quite new on the market, and yet Audi is already toying with the idea of a facelift.
To be perfectly honest, at least from a stylistic point of view, it looks like it's going to be one of the mildest refreshings the world has ever seen, even by Audi standards. The test car is wearing plenty of camouflage over its front and rear, but the changes are much harder to spot.
The lower part of the front bumper appears to remain untouched, with only some minor modifications brought to the two large air inlets on each side. And with that, we've pretty much covered everything that's new on the TT RS Roadster facelift.
There's also the headlights, which even though look like they'll retain the same shape, will have different graphics and a new LED strip for the car's DRL signature. Telling these two apart won't be easy for anyone but the brand's most diehard fans.
The side profile sees slightly modified sills and even though Audi plastered some camouflage foil over the mirrors as well, we fail to see any changes. Perhaps the biggest and most baffling modification comes at the rear, where the spied TT RS Roadster misses its wing.
It's hard to tell whether the refreshed TT RS will have an active rear spoiler, the engineers just didn't bother fitting it or the new model will just skip one altogether. Since there don't appear to be any aerodynamics modifications, we don't see how the TT RS could suddenly do without a rear wing, so one of the other two options should be the correct one. Since installing an active one would take up more space (a premium for the TT) as well as add weight and complexity, that leaves us with just the one explanation.
Since this is the first time the car has been spotted, we don't really know if Audi will do anything about the TT RS' power output. Our guess is it won't: 400 hp for a vehicle like this is plenty and, as we've said before, it's not like it's at any risk of being outclassed by the competition.
The interior shouldn't see that many changes either. Audi decided to focus on the driving and didn't include a central-mounted screen, limiting the surface of displays to that of the Virtual Cockpit - Audi's digital instrument cluster. Since, as BMW used to, the company isn't relying on a touch-sensitive user interface, the decision was easy to implement and made the TT RS look even more like a dedicated sports car.
In other words, this facelift - if we can call it that - looks more like an excuse for Audi to replace the graphics of its head and taillights. Unless, of course, the Ingolstadt company has more important plans that this and plans to bring some significant performance upgrades to the baby R8, which we sadly doubt.
To be perfectly honest, at least from a stylistic point of view, it looks like it's going to be one of the mildest refreshings the world has ever seen, even by Audi standards. The test car is wearing plenty of camouflage over its front and rear, but the changes are much harder to spot.
The lower part of the front bumper appears to remain untouched, with only some minor modifications brought to the two large air inlets on each side. And with that, we've pretty much covered everything that's new on the TT RS Roadster facelift.
There's also the headlights, which even though look like they'll retain the same shape, will have different graphics and a new LED strip for the car's DRL signature. Telling these two apart won't be easy for anyone but the brand's most diehard fans.
The side profile sees slightly modified sills and even though Audi plastered some camouflage foil over the mirrors as well, we fail to see any changes. Perhaps the biggest and most baffling modification comes at the rear, where the spied TT RS Roadster misses its wing.
It's hard to tell whether the refreshed TT RS will have an active rear spoiler, the engineers just didn't bother fitting it or the new model will just skip one altogether. Since there don't appear to be any aerodynamics modifications, we don't see how the TT RS could suddenly do without a rear wing, so one of the other two options should be the correct one. Since installing an active one would take up more space (a premium for the TT) as well as add weight and complexity, that leaves us with just the one explanation.
Since this is the first time the car has been spotted, we don't really know if Audi will do anything about the TT RS' power output. Our guess is it won't: 400 hp for a vehicle like this is plenty and, as we've said before, it's not like it's at any risk of being outclassed by the competition.
The interior shouldn't see that many changes either. Audi decided to focus on the driving and didn't include a central-mounted screen, limiting the surface of displays to that of the Virtual Cockpit - Audi's digital instrument cluster. Since, as BMW used to, the company isn't relying on a touch-sensitive user interface, the decision was easy to implement and made the TT RS look even more like a dedicated sports car.
In other words, this facelift - if we can call it that - looks more like an excuse for Audi to replace the graphics of its head and taillights. Unless, of course, the Ingolstadt company has more important plans that this and plans to bring some significant performance upgrades to the baby R8, which we sadly doubt.
Google News