Audi RS 3 Competition Limited is farewell to five

This is the Audi RS 3 Competition Limited and it's a car which serves two purposes: first, it almost certainly signs the end of the three-generation RS 3 line as we know it; and second, perhaps more poignantly, it marks the end of five decades of service for the Audi five-cylinder petrol engine.

Oh, is it not being replaced? No. EU7 emissions regs will make the current iteration of the engine, a turbocharged 2.5-litre unit with 400hp and 500Nm on tap, unviable from a financial perspective; getting it 'clean' enough to satisfy EU7 would cost too much, or the five-pot would lose too much of its character and power, and thus become meaningless in an era dominated by efficient turbocharged four-cylinder engines and hybrids.

So, having become synonymous with Audi since its introduction in 1976 - and with it now being farmed out to other in-group vehicles, such as the Cupra Formentor VZ5 (and maybe a Mk8.5 Volkswagen Golf for a final-blast R model if the rumours are to be believed) - the five-cylinder engine will be no more from the middle of 2027.

Has it got more power in the RS 3 Competition Limited? No, it hasn't. But this is not a bad thing. The warbling RS 3 engine has more than enough grunt for its size, as it will run 0-100km/h in just 3.8 seconds. This Competition Limited does get a 290km/h top speed, though, which was previously only an option.

And yes, we know that's all but irrelevant. So what makes this RS 3 Competition Limited so special? It has 'coilover' suspension, something you can't fit to any other RS 3. Audi has done this before with its runout RS models, to highly impressive effect - both the old RS 4 Avant, in its end-of-the-line Competition spec, and the astonishing RS 6 GT Avant limited edition both had this upgrade fitted, and in both instances what were already good cars in the first place turned into absolute dynamic belters as a result of the suspension swap.

On the RS 3 Competition Limited, the suspension is composed of twin-tube dampers all round, constructed of stainless steel at the front and aluminium at the rear. The front shocks have external reservoirs, while the rear items have larger-diameter tubes and thicker piston rods as well, along with an uprated, stiffer anti-roll bar.

Audi Sport has included three modes of adjustment for this coilover set-up, too, with 12 settings for low-speed compression, 15 settings of high-speed compression and 16 settings of rebound. Admittedly, all these parameters have to be physically adjusted on the suspension towers themselves - rather than being controlled by a button in the cabin of the car - but the company will sell the RS 3 with the relevant toolkit plus full instructions on how to do this, while it also states that the only thing an owner needs to do to access all the adjustment dials is raise the car on a ramp; there's no need to remove any other bits of the bodywork or even the wheels.

That's unless you want to raise or lower the ride height of the Competition Limited. The special model can be dropped 10mm closer to the deck than any other RS 3. What else is going on with the chassis and underpinnings? Well, like any other current-gen RS 3, the Competition Limited has the torque-splitting rear differential to give it lively handling, and of course quattro all-wheel drive too, while it comes with carbon-ceramic brakes (which are a cost-option on other RS 3s) as standard.

These switch out the front steel discs for the carbon items, and then Audi adds red callipers all round for good measure. Perhaps the best news is that the 19-inch wheels on the RS 3 Competition Limited can optionally be clad in semi-slick Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tyres, although regular P Zero rubber is standard.

This RS 3 looks different on the outside, right? It does indeed, because the coilover suspension isn't the only thing unique to the Competition Limited. There's much matte-effect carbon fibre on the outside of this RS 3, for items such as the side skirts, door-mirror caps and the insert above the rear diffuser.