Seven hundred and fifty cars. That’s what Audi is building to mark 50 years of its beloved inline-five engine, and the price tag — north of $115,000 — suggests the company knows exactly what it has: a dying breed worth milking one last time.
The RS3 Competition Limited, unveiled this week, pairs the familiar 2.5-liter turbocharged five-cylinder with a heap of upgrades that push an already sharp compact sedan into near-supercar money. In Europe, the Sportback starts at €100,680 and the sedan at €102,680. Convert that to dollars and you’re looking at roughly $117,000 to $120,000 before Audi even sets a US price — which it hasn’t done yet, and may never do.
That’s nearly double the $67,395 sticker on a standard 2026 RS3.
The power figures haven’t changed. You still get 394 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque from that characteristically offbeat five-pot. Zero to 62 mph still takes 3.8 seconds, top speed still sits at 180 mph. On paper, it’s the same car.
What Audi did change is everything around the engine. Engineers stripped 8.8 pounds of sound-deadening material from the firewall so the five-cylinder’s signature 1-2-4-5-3 firing order punches through to your eardrums with less filtration. The RS sport exhaust opens its valves earlier in the aggressive drive modes. It’s a deliberate choice: if the engine is going away, Audi wants you to hear every last heartbeat.
The chassis tells a more serious story. For the first time, the RS3 gets a factory-developed coilover suspension with three-way adjustable dampers — high-speed compression, low-speed compression, and rebound. Ride height drops 10 millimeters from stock.
A stiffer tubular rear anti-roll bar and firmer rear springs sharpen the balance. Carbon-ceramic brakes with red calipers come standard. Audi even includes a tool kit and setup guide so owners can dial in the suspension themselves.
Optional Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R semi-slicks suggest this car was developed with track time in mind. Whether anyone will actually track a $120,000 compact sedan built on an architecture that debuted in 2022 is another question entirely.
Visually, the Competition Limited leans hard into matte carbon fiber — front splitter, bumper canards, side skirts, rear diffuser, roof spoiler. The 19-inch forged wheels wear a matte Neodymium Gold finish that also appears inside on the bucket seat inserts. A Malachite Green paint option nods to the 1983 Sport Quattro. Even the Matrix LED headlights animate in the engine’s firing order when you lock the doors.
Inside, white-background digital gauges reference the analog dials of the 1994 RS2 Avant. A numbered plaque confirms your car’s place in the 750-unit run. It’s all very curated, very reverent — and built on bones that are starting to show their age.
Of those 750 cars, 585 will be Sportbacks and 165 sedans. Germany gets 187 units. The Sportback is almost certainly not coming to the United States, and Audi hasn’t confirmed US availability for the sedan either.
The elephant in the room is what this car really represents. Stricter emissions regulations and Audi’s accelerating electrification roadmap almost certainly mean the 2.5-liter TFSI is living on borrowed time. This isn’t just a special edition. It’s a eulogy dressed in carbon fiber and gold wheels.
Fifty years ago, Audi bet on a cylinder count nobody else wanted. That bet produced rally legends, cult sedans, and one of the most distinctive engine notes in the business. Now it gets 750 farewell cards at six figures a pop. The inline-five deserved a longer goodbye. It’s getting a very expensive one instead.
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