Older rally fans will remember the last time Audi had a car called the S1. Armed with enough spoilers, scoops and fins to shame an F1 car, it terrorised the rallying world in the 1980s, a member of the fearsome bunch of Group B rally cars that included the Ford RS200, Lancia Delta S4 and Peugeot 205 T16. If you’re too young to remember, simply search for “Walter Rohrl onboard Audi S1” on YouTube and prepare to worship a new driving hero.
The Audi S1 you see here may share the same name as the terrifying 600bhp rally car, but this hot hatch isn’t its spiritual successor. That honour goes to the A1 quattro from 2012 – the most powerful A1 ever produced, with 252bhp, bodywork that wouldn’t look out of place on a WRC car and a limited production run of 333 units.
But look closely at the modern S1’s specs and you’ll see that it isn’t too far off its limited-edition sibling. Despite having 21bhp less, the S1 has more torque, a higher top speed and a nearly identical zero-to-100km/h time. More importantly, the S1 has the same all-wheel-drive system and 6-speed manual transmission as the A1 quattro.
The S1 may look less shouty than the limited-edition A1 quattro, but it still has plenty of aesthetic flourishes to intimidate other motorists with. Inside, the seatbacks colour-coordinated to the body drive home the point this is no regular A1. Its driving position would have been near-perfect, if not for the fact that the pedals are slightly offset, just like an old Italian supercar.
Under the bonnet, you get the same 2-litre turbocharged engine found on the Audi S3, TT and VW Golf GTI. In the S1’s case, it produces 231bhp and 370Nm, which is considerable when shoehorned into a hatchback the size of a matchbox.
Given all that, the S1 is like a hyperactive child in a toy shop. It begs to be unleashed on twisty back roads, but even on the motorway, its smooth and flexible power delivery means I took every opportunity to experience the engine’s riotous nature.
It makes a nice noise, too, which means my ears aren’t left out of the S1 experience, with the deep, baritone exhaust note a strange juxtaposition against the car’s diminutive size.
As expected of a pint-sized, short-wheelbase hot hatch, the car is immensely chuckable when the roads tighten up. Extremely responsive to steering and throttle inputs, the S1 is far sharper than its larger stablemates, the S3 or TT.
The car is more rewarding the harder it’s pushed, carving up the wet, often icy roads around the Munich countryside with reassuring surefootedness. Granted, I didn’t push as hard as I would have liked, but considering the treacherous conditions, traction is never an issue.
Maybe it’s down to how the S1 has a proper manual gearbox, but whatever it is, the S1 is everything I love about good old-fashioned driver’s cars. Sure, there are niggles, like the bone-jarring ride in the car’s Dynamic mode or the over-servoed brakes, which make it hard to heel-and-toe properly, but all in all, the S1 is probably Audi’s most grin-inducing car today.
Too bad this firecracker won’t see the light of day here. Unlike the A1 quattro, which was produced in left-hand-drive only, the S1 is offered in right-hooker form, but with an estimated price in the region of Audi’s S3, it’s too expensive for Audi Singapore to import.
That’s a shame, really, because while most of us could never drive like Walter Rohrl, with the S1, we could at least imagine we could.
ENGINE 1984cc, 16-valves, inline-4, turbocharged
MAX POWER 231bhp at 6000rpm
MAX TORQUE 370Nm at 1600-3000rpm
GEARBOX 6-speed manual
0-100KM/H 5.8 seconds
TOP SPEED 250km/h
CONSUMPTION 12.9km/L (combined)
CO2 EMISSION 162g/km
PRICE INCL. COE
Not applicable
