Filed under: Aftermarket, Performance, Europe, Hatchback, Audi, Reviews

In the automotive world, price is increasingly a function of degrees. How's that? Dial in a faster windscreen angle, aggressively rake the rear glass and - voilà! - you've just padded your margins to the tune of a few thousand bucks. Take a plain-jane sedan, hire some stylists to turn it into a "four-door coupe" with a racy greenhouse, and you can use the same mechanicals and still charge a mint. The same goes for crossovers - just steepen the backlight and you're in the ducats. Not convinced? See the Mercedes-Benz CLS and BMW X6 for field notes.

We note all of this because we're sure you're going to look at the upright profile of this MTM Audi A3 Sportback and dismissively turn up your nose when you learn its pricetag is around $55,000. But if we lopped off a couple of doors or gave it a less formal roofline, we'd be willing to bet that its price would suddenly look a lot more palatable. All of which is understandable, really, as $55k is a lot of coin to be shelling out - especially considering that at a few shekels over $27k, a base A3 starts at roughly half the money.

But shelve your bodystyle prejudices and bear with us for a moment. If you're like us, you've looked longingly at a lot of what the Four-Ringed Wunder has been kicking out on its home continent - models like the RS6 Avant, TT-RS and S3. And unless you've got some seriously deep pockets, an inside man on the gray market and a relative who owes you a favor at the local DMV, you haven't got a prayer of landing any such tasty treats here in the U.S. So while the folks at Motoren-Technik-Mayer (MTM) can't source you an assembly-line-fresh S3 for your middle-American driveway, they can build you a road-legal doppelganger, and as it turns out, that ain't half bad.

We've talked up the Audi A3's virtues and vices before, so we'll spare you the gab about how much we enjoy its well-resolved interior, grippy Quattro all-wheel drive, planted handling and surprising utility. We've also not been shy in mentioning how its price tag can get disastrously dear with just a brief once-over of Audi's options list - and that's before handing it over to a tuner like MTM. But enough with the apologies - ride along with us past the jump to see if this hot hatch is full of excuses... or full of win.

Gallery: Review: 2009 MTM Audi A3 Sportback

Photos by Chris Paukert / Copyright (C)2009 Weblogs, Inc.

Continue reading Review: 2009 MTM Audi A3 Sportback is a singular sport (with) utility

Review: 2009 MTM Audi A3 Sportback is a singular sport (with) utility originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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