S3 not slated for North America! Booooohooooo! It will be 3 door only and available
 

in only a very limited number of markets.

VW has decided to bring over the R32 with 250hp in May or June of next year.

Apparently the front sub-frame on the MK V chassis does not have room to mount the 300hp 3.6 VR6 along with a beefed up DSG needed to cope with it. Even the new Passat with the wider version of the chassis has a tough time fitting the engine with a conventional Tiptronic and sees the battery moved to the truck. Rather than just make a manual, they are redesigning the sub-frame and pretty much everything forward of the firewall. Good chance that it will be called the MK VI chassis, despite much of the rear of the car being carried over. Not clear what this means for the A3. Look for the revised Golf in '08, with the hotted up version in '09 at soonest.

Auto Motor und Sport:
"The Volkswagen volume model rinses long not as much money into the cashes as planned. That must change with the new edition starting from 2008 by more favorable production and increased paragraph. The turn is to bring above all a more responding optics.

It does not become larger much. It does not become also many heavier. But it becomes many more beautiful: The new gulf of the class 2008 marks also in the series finally that departure in the Volkswagen Design, which well paid doubt carriers in the own house prevented for many years. Nearly everything remains technical with the old person. Chassis and platform are only refined, but are not renewed. Also in its dimensions that hardly changes approximately 4.20 meters long car. The fact that the gulf looks as new nevertheless is to be owed to many optical tricks.

The headlights move more near to the radiator grille, which pulls itself and is three-dimensional worked more out in the future into the width. For more elegance in the appearance provide LED turn signals in the side mirrors, a chrome edge of the side windows salient depending upon equipment variant and above all larger wheels, which let stand the car lock now concisely with the body and fullly on the road.

The gulf builds still comparatively highly - only one does not regard it to it any longer in such a way. With the Zweituerer the rising side window line provides for more dynamics. In addition, the somewhat flatter dropping roof and the stronger inclination of the back window arrange Coup? seeming for more. Available space remains unchanged, however the body program is changed: Over the sportily zugepfeilten Zweituerer in the future only the gulf plus with higher roof and improved head liberty in the interior ranks. The conventional Viertuerer is to be void against it.

Most modern technology marks the engine program: There is the new TSI with turbo compressor loading - so far only with 170 HP - then also with 150 HP. The diesel engines are changed over in the course of the next gulf model cycle by pumpe-Duese to Common Rail technology and offered in a power spectrum from 100 to 170 HP. Top model on the Benzinerseite is the 3,6-Liter-VR6 with 280 HP, which already is in the USA in the Passat in the trade and is offered again in Germany in the Touareg.

As Volkswagen boss Bernhard with the gulf wants to make money again correctly, and as the limping US business is to be brought on preceding endorser, read in the new expenditure of car engine and sport, number 6, starting from 1 March in the trade."<ul><li><a href="http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/d/104963">direct link</a></li></ul>

what do the 3.6 issues mean for the TT? I'm guessing it would have the same issues.

If I recall correctly, the TT uses the wider chassis based on the Passat/Eos. Initial release
 

will be 2.0T and 3.2.

Please help me out here.
 

Thank you for this post. Altho very little is new. Most of these comments follow the Chairman's Auto Speigel interview about a week and half ago.

Audi had earlier said the S3 would be three door only and only available in a limited number of markets. But, I can't find where it says the U.S. won't be one of those markets. My understanding was the Factory was trying to determine what changes would be needed to bring the S3 to the U.S. and how much it would cost to make those changes. At the same time, the Factory is trying to gauge the U.S. interest in a S3. If the interest is high, they might not have the capability to produce enough for the U.S. If the interest is low, how do they determine which U.S. dealers get a S3? Last I heard was that a decision wouldn't be reached until about the end of this year, and if the S3 would head to the U.S., it would be announced/disclosed at the '07 NAIAS.

Well, according to someone inside Audi, it's a no-go. Of course they can always change their mind.