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Autocar staff
http://www.autocar.co.uk
07/17/2008 - 01:33 PM
London, UK
There are three cars here you could convincingly make a case for buying if you are in the market for a $60,000-plus coupe." (Autocar photo) ยป More Photos
Look, of course the Porsche wins. What do you want me to do? Pretend the past two years haven’t happened, and make out that a car, which some say is the best-handling Porsche ever made, might not be quite as good as you already know it is?
No. I’ll spare you the condescension and the transparent facade of suspense. The Porsche Cayman is still brilliant, and no BMW 1-series coupe or Audi TT variant will make it otherwise.
The gap, however, is closer than you might think. Certainly closer than I expected. There are three cars here you could convincingly make a case for buying. Depending on your priorities, if you are in the market for a $60,000-plus coupe, the correct choice need not necessarily have “Porsche” embossed into its nose.
Normally, group tests like this begin in a gas station somewhere in the countryside, sometime after dawn. This one begins on a Monday evening at the office. Right enough, the photo shoot and driving proper for this test will begin near the Suffolk coast on a Wednesday morning. But kindly, the Audi TTS – the new car here and the purpose for this article – has arrived in ample time. So I opt to drive it home.
The TTS is meant to do for Audi’s TT coupe and roadster what the S8 did for the big A8 sedan (and what other S models have been doing since).
My commute is neither a long nor interesting enough journey to explore the minutiae of chassis dynamics – or even engine response – but it’s enough to tell me that the TT, a car that has been getting better and better, and consistently more rewarding, since its 1998 launch, is, in “S” form, as good as it has ever been (although the last-generation TT quattro Sport was underrated, if you’re interested). By the time I arrive back at work on Tuesday morning, I think there’s the outside chance of an upset.
But in a similar act of kindness, the Porsche Cayman gets delivered a few hours later. That evening I let the TTS and our long-term BMW 135i coupe, which I know well, drift away before going home in the Cayman prior to our rendezvous early the following morning. Within 30 seconds, I know this test’s outcome.
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