Listen to the 2022 Audi RS3 and Watch it Drift

The upcoming 2022 Audi RS3 is going to be a kick-ass little car when it finally debuts. The RS3 has always been a fun, relatively affordable, practical performance car that can be used everyday. However, it’s always missed a lot of the rear-biased fun of some of its rivals. Now, thanks to a newer all-wheel drive setup and an RS Torque Splitter rear differential, it can send up to 100 percent of its torque to the rear axle, and even a single rear wheel. That, along with its killer 2.5 liter turbocharged five-cylinder engine, should make it the most fun RS3 ever.

In this new from Auditography, we get to listen to the new 2022 Audi RS3’s engine and exhaust, see it accelerate from 0-100 km/h (62 mph), and even see a bit of its new drift-mode capabilities.

Audi’s turbocharged five-pot has always been a brilliant sounding engine and it’s no different here. It growls and burbles at low rpms, with some fun turbo whistles thrown in for good measure. But the its wails as its revs climb higher, giving it a more exotic sound than you might expect out of such a small sedan. It backs up that bark with some bite, too. With around 400 horsepower (394 horsepower in Europe, 401 horsepower in North America) and 369 lb-ft of torque, the Audi RS3 is capable of 0-62 mph in a claimed 3.8 seconds. In reality, it will likely shave a couple of tenths off that time, as all German cars seem to do.

Later in the video, you get to watch the RS3 drift a bit. Admittedly, the camera angle is from inside the car, focused on the driver, so you can’t see much of its drifting abilities but it is still cool to see. The Audi RS3 was never good at drifting, due to the fact that it could never really send more than 50-percent of its engine power to the rear axle, unless under extreme circumstances. This one can, and will, send full power to the back axle whenever it wants to, or whenever the driver wants to, which makes a proper little drift weapon. I can’t wait to drive it.