Audi Q3 RS: A quick Q3 planned for 2012

Audi are planning a hot Q3 - Audi Q3 RS, perhaps?

Audi are reported to be preparing a hot Q3 – an Audi Q3 RS – with 300bhp from the 5-pot TT-RS lump. Expected on sale in 2012.

To be honest, we’re not exactly certain that a quick Audi Q3 will actually come to market as the Audi Q3 RS. But we are pretty sure there is going to be a quick Q3 with something over 300bhp.

Audi CEO Rupert Stadler has told Auto Motor und Sport that Audi’s new baby SUV – which finally went in to production at Martorell this month – will spawn a production model that will get the 5-pot Audi already use in the TT RS. Which sounds more than a little interesting.

It’s believed that the 5-pot won’t get as many horses as the TT-RS – which gets a rather meaty 335 – but will have to do with ‘just’ 300bhp. But it seems likely that any sacrifice on horses will be made up for by an increase in the twisty stuff – ideal for the little SUV.

We have no reason to doubt that Auto Motor und Sport have got this gen direct from the mouth of Rupert Stadler. But it does seem to run roughshod over the assertion last year by Audi that the RS moniker was for very special cars and wouldn’t be used on the ‘Q’ cars.

But time are a changing, and the SUVs – in the shape of the Q3, Q5 and Q7 – are rapidly becoming a significant proportion of Audi’s sales. The Q3 alone is expected to account for 100,000 sales a year, so maybe pragmatism will rear its head and the RS badge on a Q3 will, after all, be deemed acceptable.

We also wonder what Porsche will make of Audi’s apparent plans for a hot Q3. Porsche themselves have plans for a Porsche Cajun (Cayenne Junior) based on Audi’s Q5 platform, which Audi is developing for them. Talk of these levels of power in a sport SUV would seem to be a red rag to a bull. Ah, the joys of internal politics.

Still, whether it’s and Audi Q3 RS, Q3 S or S Q3, it seems certain there will be a hot Q3 by the end of 2012.

Unless Porsche manages to kibosh it.