Audi A3 24h Street

Audi specialist website Fourtitude have been thrown the keys to a pretty special little car—the Audi A3 24h Street. The car is so named because it is based on the A3 used in the 2008 Nürburgring 24 hour race. It’s a bit of mish-mash of parts, it has to be said, and in very basic terms the car is a track focused front-wheel drive S3.

Of course, there is more to it than that. Or, actually, less to it, as the car has been lightened through the loss of the Haldex AWD system, along with lightweight wheels, carbon fibre body panels and a stripped out interior. Essentially, this is Audi’s answer to the epic Renaultsport Mégane R26.R.

The diet enforced upon the A3 24h Street has saved an impressive 265kg over the weight of a standard road going S3. This fact is made even better when you consider that power has been upped by almost 30kW, from 195kW up to 223kW (300bhp). Torque has also increased somewhat, up 40Nm to 390Nm.

Helping to keep things under control are a 6 speed DSG transmission, an Audi Sport mechanical locking differential and, judging by the pics, uprated brakes sourced from the R8.

So, have these tweaks come to any good? Yes, it appears they have, with the Fourtitude report saying, “Upon acceleration, torque comes on immediately and this car easily keeps pace with the full production spec TT RS pace car.

“This test isn’t extensive, so we’ve neither performance numbers nor lap times to share. The quick drive serves its purpose though and it is easy to see just how much can be saved in a typical race-spec transformation, even when applied to a production car like the S3.”

Now, if only Audi got fair dinkum and built a limited run of these cars. That would be pretty damn good!

[Source: Fourtitude]