The inspired new RS Q3

Driving enthusiasts usually prefer winding, uphill ribbons of striped black licorice. Romantics relish ramshackle country lanes, all framed by fallen leaves and hedgerows. But whatever your taste in roads, all the best ones have one thing in common: they don’t have trees in the middle.

Especially not lying across both lanes. And especially, especially not lying across both lanes, during a rainstorm, in low, grey, mid-afternoon light, with every surface slicker than Presidential candidate spin.

Happily, our all-new RS Q3 performance pulls up in an instant, distinctive, red RS design brake calipers biting hard inside matt titanium-finish 20-inch alloys. Water beads on our rich Ascari Blue bonnet, one of eight available colours. We’re stopped. Everyone is stopped.

“What’s the problem?” we ask, cracking the window to a roadside bystander. He has flicked on his hazards and left his vehicle, and could now not conceivably be more saturated. 

“A massive tree across the road,” he says, removing his diver’s mask, and bobbing alongside the B-pillar, beside some ducks. “And also a ute has swerved into the ditch, but the driver is okay.” 

“Don’t worry,” says our visitor. “The SES is getting stuck into it with a chainsaw. Shouldn’t be long.”

It’s early October, and for school holiday vacationers, this weather has been a disaster. But for the quattro-enabled Audi RS Q3 performance, it’s just another opportunity to shine. This is our sixth downed tree so far (for three stoppages, two quickly cleared; not every tree completely blocked both lanes, and one smaller, splintered one that did, improbably, we roared straight over). Throughout, Audi’s legendary all-wheel drive system has excelled. Even in the wet, quattro brooks no argument. 

That Ingolstadt’s Audi Sport SUV variant is sure-footed is nothing new. That it manages to get all its power to a storm-blighted road, with its updated figures of 270kW (boosted by 20kW over the regular RS Q3) and 465Nm (up 15Nm) is deeply impressive. Those new numbers are identical to the brilliantly track-capable Audi RS 3, with which the RS Q3 performance’s engine, handmade in Győr, Hungary, is closely related. 

The concept of the performance SUV once had its doubters. Indeed, a decade ago, to suggest it was a good idea to arm a 1730kg SUV with a turbocharged five-cylinder 2480cc engine – one that pares its 0-100km/h time back to just 4.4 seconds – would have gotten you laughed out of the craziest fan forums. Yet since its debut, at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show, the RS Q3 has carved its own path with a unique combination of potency and practicality. 

So it’s no surprise that this latest iteration pushes that dexterity further still. Capable of an everyday school run or unflappable commute over occasionally choppy Australian roads – Drive Select toggled to ‘Comfort’ mode, naturally – the only SUV with an Audi ‘RS’ label is the picture of premium luxury. 

Slip it into ‘Dynamic’, however, and Jekyll becomes Hyde, with a gloriously throaty blip-and-pop waffle on overrun, and a madman’s thirst for corners. 

Steering tip-in, burnished by speed-dependent power assist, is lightning fast. Begin to hook in, and unflappable suspension, which hunkers the new RS Q3 performance a further 20mm onto its springs, and the optional adaptive dampers, all-but negate body roll. 

Its top speed, when not parked beside a tree, is an electronically governed 270km/h.

Swaddled in a typically well put together cabin, highlighted by judicious use of carbon fibre (especially around the gear shift and above the glovebox), it’s easy to forget the RS Q3’s dynamic chops.

Quality leather, Alcantara and a cool flat-bottomed steering wheel mean every touchpoint is a tactile confirmation of Ingolstat’s priorities. Its pedigree is writ-large at any speed. In the back, an everyday luggage capacity of 356L – 1261L with the bench seat folded – backs that tactile confirmation with obvious practicality.

The problem, then, idling near the NSW/Victoria border, is not in the RS Q3 performance’s ability, nor in choosing how you want to drive. The new model is perfectly happy to follow your lead, whether you want to chase down great distances very quickly, or chase down milk for the cereal you’ve already poured at home. It will engage just as enthusiastically with a series of bends, quattro in its element, as it will seal you off, hermetically, from the bumper-to-bumper grind of CBD gridlock.

The problem is when mother nature decides to improve on the first principles of road building.

Audi’s directional indicators are great, but when you’re using them as hazard lights, queued on a country road, you can only envisage all the corners you’re not enjoying. If only the eucalypt’s grip on the earth had progressed as far that of Audi’s premium performance SUV. 

Find out more about the Audi RS Q3.