Our Cars: Audi S e-tron GT

Like a Mustang driver leaving Cars & Coffee, I may have overcorrected here. Last month I wrote about my little Volkswagen Up GTI and how insubstantial it felt, how unsuited it was to long motorway journeys. Well it’s gone for good and now I’m running a car that weighs more than twice as much, is 1.4 metres longer, ten times more valuable and is as solid as a vault. I’ve gone from a bus shelter to the Winter Palace.

This Audi S e-tron GT is mine for a few months and there’s so much that I want to say about it already. It’s also the first EV I’ve lived with and there’s a great deal I want to say about that too. There will be plenty of time for that in the months to come, but for now I want to introduce you to the Audi and, before that, bid proper farewell to my Up.

No, I wasn’t expecting it to depart quite so soon either. I remember writing in an earlier report that I reckoned the baby GTI would need to take care of one or two long journeys a month – infrequently enough that its absent touring credentials wouldn’t concern me. That’s the bit I got wrong. Even on those occasional two or three hour drives, I found myself longing for something bigger, more comfortable and more relaxing.