Audi RS3 Competition Limited: 18 coming to Australia as five-cylinder bows out
Audi is sending off its iconic five-cylinder engine with a 750 unit global special edition. Australia gets just 18 examples, split across Sportback and Sedan body styles with pricing yet to be confirmed.
Rob Leigh
Audi has revealed the RS3 Competition Limited, a run-out special built to mark 50 years of its five-cylinder engine. Just 750 will be made worldwide, with Australia receiving 10 Sportbacks and eight Sedans.
No local pricing has been announced, but in Germany the Competition Limited sits just above €100,000, which is roughly 43 per cent more than a standard RS3 Sportback. In Australia, the standard car starts at $104,800 before on-roads.
The headline addition is a purpose-built coilover suspension system, developed specifically for this model. Up front, stainless steel twin-tube dampers feature external reservoirs for better cooling under load. Out back, larger-diameter tubes with thicker piston rods improve rigidity. The setup is three-way adjustable: 12 steps of low-speed compression, 15 steps of high-speed compression, and 16 steps of rebound. Audi includes a setup manual and toolkit in every car.
Visually, the Competition Limited gets matte carbon across the mirror caps, door sills, roof spoiler, rear diffuser trim, and a new split front splitter with canards at each corner. Three colours are offered: Daytona Grey metallic, Glacier White matte, and the exclusive Malachite Green, a shade not seen on an Audi since the original Sport Quattro of the 1980s. Wheels are 19-inch Neodymium Gold items, with Pirelli P Zero or optional Trofeo R semi-slicks.
Inside, Neodymium Gold and Ginger White run throughout, covering the seat centres, door cards, arm rests, and seatbelts. Carbon-backed RS bucket seats are standard. Each car carries a sequential production number on the centre console. The digital instrument cluster uses a white dial face, a nod to the 1994 RS2 Avant.
Power stays the same as the standard RS3: 294kW and 500Nm from the 2.5-litre turbo five, with a 3.8-second 0-100km/h claim. The top speed limiter rises to 290km/h. Audi has also trimmed firewall insulation so more of that five-cylinder sound reaches the cabin.
This is the last RS3, and almost certainly the last car to use this engine. European emissions rules arriving in 2027 make sure of that.
