Hello all-<p>In the midst of my desires to purchase the new Volkswagen GTI 6-cylinder in a year or so, I have also recently discovered Audi's A3 and S3, and checked out www.audi.com's bullets on these cars.<p>They appear to be great fun, and Audi's expected answer to VW's hatchback road monster. Do these cars have any similarities in their feel? Are they really comparable at all? My first impression would be yes, seeing as the last generation Golf/GTI was an A3 body, I believe, even though now they are A4. <p>The Audi A3/S3 looks quite a bit like one of the Honda Civic hatchbacks, in my opinion, excepting the nose and some other features. But anyway, I hope that some of you can offer opinions on the VW/Audi GTI/A(S)3 similarities and differences through experience or the grapevine. I know all of the obvious physical stats -- that kind of data is found anywhere.<p>Thanks!<p>---

The A3 was the first car released on this chassis. The Beetle was the first in the US. As for feel, I'd imagine they at least feel similar though I have no idea since the A3 isn't imported into the US.<p>Out of all of them I'd be inclined to go for the S3 but it probably comes down to a matter of preference.

This kinda bugs me sometimes...but there seems to be quite a bit of confusion on the platforms that the A3/Jetta/Golf use. First, the Audi A4 and the VW Passat share a similar platform (stretched in the Passat). I'm not sure what it is called (B5 for Passat), but the chassis/platform is NOT the same as the one used in the Audi A3/VW Golf/Jetta cars. These cars use a PLATFORM called the A4 platform...note the difference, the platform's nomenclature is A4, that doesn't mean it shares the same platform as the AUDI A4...the previous platform was called the A3...<p>I don't know why Audi/VW do this...it can be very confusing. Hope this clears some of that up...<p>Cheers,<br>-Ash 98.5 1.8TQMS

Yeah I know it's all very confusing! I think I have the Audi/VW "family body style tree" fairly understood, but I was just wondering how much of a difference there was between say the Audi S3 and the VW GTI GLX VR6 (say THAT 10 times fast). It's much like, I suppose, comparing an A4 or A6 to a VW Passat. 8-)<p>My guess is that the S3 is the one to have, too.<br>But purchase and maintenance costs are both out of realistic reach. Well, that is if I want to keep much of my salary for myself!<p>---