The new Audi TT outshines its forerunners

The Audi TT has always looked good - at last, version 3.0 drives good, too, writes Thomas Falkiner.

The 1990s will be remembered for many reasons. Cringeworthy fashion. The great dot-com boom. Saddam Hussein receiving his first American butt-kicking. Ewan McGregor soiling bed sheets in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting. Fist-pumping to Underworld and Orbital. One could draw up an impressively long list.

And if you did, I'm damn sure that the first Audi TT would make an appearance thanks to its revolutionary design. For it was pretty much the Apple iMac of the car world: an automotive watershed that single-handedly saved an industry stuck in a mire of jelly-mould mediocrity. Even the BMW Z3 couldn't hold a candle to its beautifully simplistic, Bauhaus exterior.

It was an instant classic: an icon that still seems stylistically relevant nearly two decades after the fact. Unfortunately when you got the chance to drive one you'd come away feeling a little discontented. The reason being that the car's proletariat Golf IV underpinnings couldn't do those saucy looks any justice.

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When the second-generation TT came out in the noughties, Audi made sure that it focused its efforts on the car's performance. So the engineers bolted in an independent rear suspension, built some powerful new engines and started bragging about much-improved lap times at Germany's infamous Nürburgring. It was a gallant effort, one that did a great deal to give the lie to cruel jokes that the TT marque was nothing more than a prop for Camps Bay posers. Now although the Mk2 may have been a lot better to drive, it had kind of lost that effortless sex appeal of the original. It somehow seemed more ordinary - like a Victoria's Secret model's rather plain sister.

Which moves us along nicely to the latest TT incarnation. Critics slate it as just a facelifted copy of its predecessor. And giving it a hurried glance across a busy street you can kind of see what they're on about. Get up close and personal, however, and you'll realise that it's actually quite different. There's obviously been some gefoefeling in the Audi stable because you can see a lot of the R8 coming through in this machine's genealogy. Especially up front, where those four chrome rings have been moved up onto the leading edge of the bonnet. A larger grille. Creasier shoulders. Lots of jagged edges. The new TT makes a much stronger impression than its forerunner ever did.

The same goes for the interior; it rocks one of the neatest cabins in the world at the moment. I'm loath to splice in another Apple analogy but there's no other way to describe the stripped-down, user-friendly way in which the dials and switches have been worked into the dashboard. It feels like the first time you operated an iPod - alienly futuristic yet at the same time simple and intuitive.

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The climate control switchgear, for example, has actually been placed within the middle of the three centre air vents. Genius. But what really steals the show is the so-called virtual cockpit. Instead of relying on painfully old-fashioned analogue dials, the TT gets an instrument binnacle filled with a 12-inch thin-film transistor display. Virtual tachometer and speedometer. Satellite navigation. Car and audio settings. Everything is projected right within your line of sight in tablet-aping HD resolution.

I could rave about this machine's innards for paragraphs. But that would leave precious little space to talk about what is arguably the greatest thing about the new TT - the way it drives.

While the last two models were lukewarm at best (yes, even the TT-RS), the Mk3 is something you can actually refer to as a sports car without feeling like a total mythomaniac. The Quattro version is nice in the wet but the front-wheel-drive version is actually the one you want. It's lighter, feels more nimble and is capable of threading together corners at serious speed without breaking sweat.

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It's also gone easy on the aloofness - a long-time TT trait. For a change there's some real feedback here, a willingness to communicate with whoever is behind the steering wheel. This is a car that's game for some heated back-road debauchery. At the same time it's also happy to take it easy. Set the Audi drive select to comfort mode and it wafts along with all the unfussed swagger of your girlfriend's A3 hatch.

A Porsche Cayman remains a sharper driving tool, the enthusiast's weapon of choice, but it's a whopping R275k more expensive and nowhere near as well equipped or as everyday livable (you don't get the handy +2 seats in the back). All of which makes this arguably the best and most balanced TT yet. It may have taken 17 years - another passing decade of pop culture heroes and zeroes - but Audi has finally got it right.

FAST FACTS ABOUT THE AUDI 2.0 TFSI COUPE

Engine: 1984cc four cylinder turbo

Power: 169kW at 4 500rpm

Torque: 370Nm at 1 600rpm

Transmission: Six-speed DSG

0-100km/h: 5.9 seconds

Top speed: 250km/h

Fuel: 8.8l/100km (achieved)

CO2: 146g/km (claimed)

Price: From R558 000

Follow the author of this article, Thomas Falkiner, on Twitter: @TomFalkiner111.