What's the news?
ABT Sportsline, the self-styled 'leading tuner of cars produced by the Audi and Volkswagen Group', has gotten its grubby mitts on Audi's latest hot hatch and turned the power up to 11. With 231hp on tap straight out of the box the Audi S1 (no not that S1) is already a fairly potent hot hatch, but in ABT hands it is redonkulous. How redonkulous you might ask? How does 310hp and 440Nm of torque grab you? That is a little more power than is offered by the S1's bigger brother, the Audi S3, and comes in a package no much bigger than a MINI.
The power increase comes courtesy of ABT's 'POWER New Generation' electronic control unit (ECU). Essentially a remapped ECU with the emphasis put on performance the New Generation should see the S1's 0-100km/h time dip by a tenth or two - though no official figures are offered.
In addition to engine tuning ABT has also been playing around with the S1's aerodynamics and has dropped the already low car by 30mm on ABT sports springs and fitted aero-focused inserts to the bumpers.
Anything else?
The S1's standard wheel have also been swapped out for a set of 18-inch ABT DR gunmetal grey alloys or the option of a one-piece cast Z5 wheels in titanium matte. No word yet on price but the ABT upgrades are not likely to come cheap.