Good afternoon folks, today I took the Audi A8 I reviewed on Saturday to change a keyless entry sensor on driver's door. Since the procedure took 2 hours I decided to take Audi A1 for a spin. As Audi salesman noted, A1 is the smallest Audi, A8 is the biggest and the contrast is obviously huge. Exterior: This particular baby Audi is equipped with S-line, making it look really nice. The car is really small, but it is an eye candy in real life. Obviously, my phone camera is not able to portray the actual color of the car, but it really is eye catching. I parked it next to our X6 for size comparison. They also had a regular A1 without the S-line and it looks substantially worse. Interior: I will start by saying that this car has been designed to be cheap. And I mean it in the most positive way. There is not a single part inside that is unnecessary. Although the materials are relatively cheap, the build quality is very solid. For example, air vents are very easily adjustable in way that they offer just enough resistance for you to be able to point them in exactly the direction you want. The wheel here is (as I understand) optional 3 spoke. It is covered with sort-of-leather material that feels great in your hands. Although the seats are upholstered they feel quite unusual in a way that when you touch them you do not feel the strands of the fabric, it has a perfect balance between roughness and smoothness, Of course the biggest disappointment from today was the gearbox. The clientele that they are targeting here is wives/daughters (seriously, I do not want to sound intolerant or anything, but that is just how it is. You should see how many Audi Q1/Q3 S-line and BMW X3 2.0d ///M are here in Lithuania) who do not need good performance, just a good looking city car that offers hassle free driving, hence the automatic transmission. I find it difficult to evaluate driving dynamics because I haven't driven any other car of a similar size/engine capacity for a very long time. However considering the size of the car the suspension is really adequate. Lithuania is a country of contrasts and although most roads are of high or very high quality, 49% of the roads are (no offense) Soviet. And even on the latter the car still offers reasonable level of comfort. Although there are seats in the back, but with my height (180cm) and a comfortable seat position only a child would fit behind me. The trunk is really small, but since the rear seats are mostly useless and easily foldable that does not seem to be a big issue. The car also has a somewhat better than standard radio and hence a color screen. What puzzles me is the fact that you actually need to push the screen down for it to open. The sound quality was quite reasonable as well. The fuel consumption was varying between 6 to 7l/100km. And my driving was very far from slow. All in all it is an almost perfect city car. Give me manual gearbox, better sound system and I am good to go. Price wise it is also cheap. The base model with such engine costs EUR 19.700 and the car I drove costs EUR 26.800.
Thanks for the review! The A1 is sure the best looking little car and my favo. It looks crazy bland without the must-have LED lights. Weird for somebody to take the car without it, and with S-line.
Are you sure the one in those photos is a S-Line because it looks remarkably similar to the A1 1.6TDi Sport we got for one of our managers, same rims. P.S. Great little car, a real quality and big car feel that is unheard of in this class. Mighty economical too.
^ It was the rims that threw me because they are the same as the Sport, I thought they were different. I must admit I never even noticed the rear bumper. Are these not the normal S-line rims?
Yes, they are. But I guess you can always spec different ones, and different markets have different options. The 18" rims on my A1 S-Line aren't an option in the UK.
Thank you for the photo's and review le rosey There is nothing not to like about the A1 , cool yet sophisticated little rocket. The color combo from Betty's A1 still my favourite
You are on a roll with these Audi review. The 1.6D is a rich man's Toyota Yaris. Great looks but low fuel consumption. Obviously one would be smart to de-badge it and let is stride around the city like luxury car with hidden secrets.
I'm running a 1.6TDI as a daily driver since parting with my S3 last year. A funny thing is, I drive all the way down to Munich once a year - which provides my yearly autobahn fix. The 105 hp A1 get's that job done a lot faster than the 350 hp S3 - simply by virtue of sipping the fuel...
This comment made me wash and wax the A1. Pictures here. http://www.germancarforum.com/community/threads/my-audi-a1-1-2-tfsi-s-line.44626/
^ Stunning! Unbelievable how a small hatch can get me all excited, I guess I was born a slave of the 'GTI' generation. I will have the clone of your A1 today Matthew and enjoy driving her every day! Must be the 'boy-racer' in us that never dies or whatever it is, even each and every new Polo hatch I see gets my attention
