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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.

2015 Audi A8 and S8 get some new goodies

Luxury car buyers are a demanding bunch. They've got this crazy notion that just because they're spending the better part of a hundred grand on a top-tier luxury sedan, they should get the very best and the cutting edge of what the industry has to offer. That has tended to come down to the S-Class even when it had grown long in the tooth, and now that Mercedes-Benz has rolled out an all-new version, the competition is falling all over itself to release updates to keep their flagship sedans in the running. Jaguar did that just yesterday with its XJ sedan, and now Audi has revealed the latest revisions to its A8 range.
Set to debut at the Frankfurt show in just a few weeks from now, the latest A8 (and its performance version, the S8) benefits from a series of stylistic, powertrain, and technology upgrades. Among the most prominent, of all things, are the new Matrix LED headlights that can automatically lower the high-beams for oncoming vehicles, with integrated turn signals that light up to point in the direction the driver's about to turn. But that's hardly the end of the story.
Audi has apparently reduced the output on the 3.0-liter supercharged V6 to from 328 horsepower to 310 but raised the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 from 414 hp to 435, which now offers a 0-60 run of just 4.5 seconds. That's just three tenths behind the S8, which remains unchanged at 513 hp, as does the 493-hp 6.3-liter W12. The 3.0-liter TDI is up from 247 hp to 258, the 4.2-liter TDI grows from 345 hp to at 385 (with a massive 627 pound-feet of torque to boot) and the hybrid that offers a combined 245 hp and 354 lb-ft. That makes for one massive array of engines globally, although only some of them will be offered Stateside. Each is mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission and Quattro all-wheel drive, but thanks to the A8's lightweight construction, it's lighter than any other all-wheel-drive model in its class.

Audi considering other variants, turbo V6 for R8

More details from the Audi R8 event at Spain's Ascari circuit have met the Internet, and they provide more intel on the supercoupe will evolve over the second generation. First, they note some small differences in stance with this new car, being wider than the current car and sitting 30 millimeters (1.18 inches) lower. Compared to its Lamborghini Huracan brother, it gets three extra centimeters in the wheelbase. Filling out the power numbers, the 'entry-level' V10 engine at launch rolls out 540 horsepower and 399 pound-feet of torque, does the 0-60 mile per hour dash in 3.5 seconds, and hits a top speed of 200 mph. The V10 Plus model rocks 620 hp and 412 lb-ft, which slices 0.3 seconds off that acceleration time and adds five more mph to the top speed. They'll transfer their power through a seven-speed S-tronic that shifts faster than before, and it will in turn send power through an electronically-controlled clutch at the front axle and a constantly variable limited-slip differential at the rear axle. The power split is said to default to 42/58 front-to-rear, but 100 percent of the torque can be sent fore or aft. Benchmarked against the 991-series Porsche 911, driving sensations travel through an electromechanical steering setup that can be had with a variable rack if preferred, leading to standard 19-inch wheels with the option of 20-inchers and tires developed specifically for this car. A Performance setting offers dry, wet, and snow modes; that first setting turns the ESC off except for situations of impending doom, and Audi racer and test driver Frank Stippler told Top Gear that understeer is reduced, to which TG added "it oversteers at will." Stippler said it's "a lot closer to the GT3 race car than ever before," and even though it's "a lot" less intense than the Huracan, it's just as fast on the track. His estimate is that the new R8 will lap the Nurburgring between ten and 15 seconds faster than the current car. R8 technical lead Roland Schala said the new chassis opens up new avenues of development because "there's no problem to change it," mentioning models like a Clubsport or Superleggera as no longer forbidden. Differentiation could come from a wider engine mix, too. Markets like China need smaller displacements, so Audi's twin-turbo V8 is expected to join the line-up at some point, bringing 500 horsepower.