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Audi A3 Clubsport Quattro concept bringing its 525 horses to W?rthersee

It's almost late May, and you know what that means: the last of the snow has melted, the Stanley Cup playoffs are in full swing, the flowers are blooming, and the performance-car faithful are descending on Wörthersee in Austria for the annual GTI-Treffen.
Not only is the Wörthersee Tour (as the automaker calls it) a chance for enthusiasts to show off their rides, it's also a prime opportunity for the Volkswagen Group to show some of its most dedicated customers what it can do. Past meets have given us such notables as the Audi A1 Clubsport Quattro, Volkswagen GTI W12-650 and Skoda Fabia RS 2000 Roadster, to name just a few. And now Audi has emerged as the first VW Group brand to reveal what it has in store.
It's called the A3 Clubsport Quattro, and seems to offer a pretty clear indication of what we should expect of the next RS3. The concept is based on the S3 sedan, but swaps out its 2.0-liter turbo four for a retuned version of Audi's sweet 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-five, retuned to produce a massive 525 horsepower and 442 pound-feet of torque.

Top Gear names BMW i8 Car of the Year, Corvette, Ferrari, Mercedes also win big

The lads at Top Gear have released their listing of the finest cars of the past year, handing the ultimate honor to BMW's revolutionary i8 plug-in-hybrid supercar. "The i8 is a milestone in the annals of automotive history and a glorious statement for an exciting and positive future. The i8 delivers - and then some," the British mag wrote. The i8, though, was far from the only hybridized car to take victories. James May and Richard Hammond both highlighted hybrids as their personal cars of the year, with May saluting the Ferrari LaFerrari and the Hamster, unsurprisingly, heaping praise on the Porsche 918 Spyder. Jeremy Clarkson, meanwhile, opted to shock many by selecting not only an American car as his best of 2014, but giving the honor to of all things, a Corvette. Clarkson wasn't the only person to honor the USA's iconic sports car, with the new, 650-horsepower Z06 variant being named TG's Muscle Car of the Year. Other big winners include Mercedes-Benz, which TG honored for S-Class Coupe (Luxury Car of the Year), the new AMG GT (Sports Car of the Year) and the not-for-US C-Class Estate (Family Car of the Year). The 458 Italia Speciale A snagged a second win for Ferrari. The best of the rest include the Citroen C4 Cactus, Renault Twingo, Volkswagen Golf R, Lamborghini Huracan and Audi TT. Take a look below for the celebratory press blast from BMW. The BMW i8 wins Top Gear Car of the Year The BMW i8 has been named as Top Gear magazine's global Car of the Year 2014. The plug-in hybrid performance vehicle beat off some stiff competition from a host of other premium and luxury manufacturers to win the overall award. The editorial team of Top Gear commended the BMW i8 for its breadth of abilities. Its 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine combined with an electric motor gives searing acceleration and driver enjoyment but all wrapped in a package that takes BMW's EfficientDynamics philosophy to the extreme courtesy of CO2 emissions less than 49g/km and a 135mpg combined cycle figure. Charlie Turner, Editor in Chief at Top Gear magazine, said: "The BMW is a milestone in the annals of automotive history and a glorious statement for an exciting and positive future. The i8 delivers – and then some. It's the kind of car we should celebrate, a beautiful vision of the future, delivered now.

Audi Prologue Concept [w/videos]

What you're looking at here is a preview of Audi's next-gen exterior and interior design. You can't tell, but in these photos, I'm wearing what can only be described as an ultra-white cloth spacesuit. Before opening the large driver's door of the Audi Prologue concept outside of the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, Audi requested that I don a super-attractive onesie so as to not let my flannel-covered human flesh touch the untreated leather surfaces of the Prologue's interior. I tied the spacesuit around me just above the waist, let my Converse poke out the footholes, and promised to hold in any sneezes. After all, I was being granted a serious privilege. I was about to drive the multi-million dollar, only-one-in-the-world Prologue that had just stunned crowds at the Los Angeles Auto Show days earlier. This isn't the first time Audi has bravely let the media sample its conceptual wares. In 2010, the German automaker granted us access to its incredibly enticing Quattro concept, probably hoping that the media would rave about the thing enough to convince the higher powers to actually green-light and build it. (We're still waiting on that one, of course.) You could argue that this same logic was applied when allowing me to drive the Prologue – it's no secret that Audi has been dreaming of a range-topping A9, though company officials told me that there is currently no decision on whether or not to produce such a car. But that's not really what the Prologue is about. As its name suggests, what you're looking at here is a preview of Audi's next-generation exterior and interior design, in a fully baked, fully functional package. Suit up, and behold the future. While the Prologue won't necessarily spawn its own production model, its elements will be incorporated on the next A6, A7 and A8. "Timeless but progressive." That's the key takeaway of the Prologue's aesthetic, according to exterior designer Parys Cybulski. The focus here is on beautiful, yet modern, simplicity. A design that looks both contemporary and forward-thinking at the same time, and something that will still look up-to-date in several years' time. After all, while the Prologue won't necessarily spawn its own production model, its elements will be incorporated on the next A6, A7 and A8. Up front, the most prominent feature is, of course, Audi's single-frame grille, seen here with a larger breadth than anything else in the brand's lineup, though its closest resemblance is seen on the new TT.