Buy An Original Audi RS3 For A Third Of The Price Of A New One

The new Audi RS3 will likely be an excellent car. The pre-facelift third-generation was already as engaging to drive as the model’s ever been, and with the tweaks the updated one’s undergone, we’re in no doubt that it’ll be even more entertaining.

There’s no getting around the fact that it starts at a shade under £60,000, though. We’ve kind of stopped being shocked by new car prices, but that’s still a huge amount for something that’s fundamentally a VW Golf underneath.

With the RS3 now having been around for 13 years and three generations, we’ve once again been to our favourite place to procrastinate and pass it off as actual work: the classifieds.

The RS3 first launched back in 2011, and it… wasn’t an instant smash hit. Sure, it sold, but it was never exactly known for offering an engaging drive. It had very much been educated at the Old Fast Audi School of Performance Cars – plenty of luxury, plenty of pace, but all of it deployed in a rather blunt, not particularly finessed manner.

You could argue that that’s never really been what the RS3’s about, though. It’s a nice bonus in the newer car, but its centrepiece, its USP, has always been that engine. A five-cylinder is a rare enough thing in a 21st-century performance car, but for Audi to stuff one in a family hatch when all its rivals were already using rather dull turbo four-pots was a masterstroke.

In the original car, that 2.5-litre turbo engine delivered 335bhp of warbly horsepower (it’s actually illegal to write about a five-cylinder engine without using the word ‘warbly’. We checked) which meant it could hit 62mph in 4.6 seconds. That’s still quick now, but in 2011, in a five-door hatchback, it was near-unprecedented.

What’s more, with a durable iron block and strong internals, this was a massively tuneable engine. Depending on how much cash you’ve got to throw at it, upwards of 600bhp isn’t out of the question.

In standard form, though, the original RS3 is starting to look temptingly cheap. We found this one – 35,000 miles, three previous owners, and a remarkably clean MOT history – for £19,349. That’s pretty much a third of what a brand-new RS3 Sportback will cost before you start throwing options at it.

Granted, it’s not the most exciting spec ever, but it does have the very desirable carbon wingback bucket seats up front, which wins it big points.

Even if it won’t set your hair on fire on a twisty road, though, you’re getting luxury, pace, and lots of point-to-point performance, all for the sort of sum a new supermini would cost. Not to mention one of the most exciting, charismatic engines of the last 20 years. For plenty of people, that should be more than enough.