Hi all,
Well I went to this yesterday and I was very very impressed with the day indeed.
When we got to Millbrook we had to line up and wait for an escort to be taken into the site and they place a sticker over the lens of your phone to prevent any pics being taken. I thought that was cool but fairly gutted I couldn't take any pics.
As we drove through the grounds we started to arrive at the Audi section and there were about 30-40 brand new A3's all lined up ready to be used for the day. I was on the afternoon session so got there for around 2 ish, So the first thing we had to do was sign in and get our lanyard with our names printed on it which I thought was pretty cool. (need to get our more) We were then asked to move through to the lunch room where there we 4 cars sat inside. The new 3 door A3 and two new A3 sportbacks and alongside those was a brand new A-Class and a BMW 1 series. I was pretty impressed as they Audi guy told me that they couldn't get a A-Class in England so they hired one all the way from Germany and drove it over and it was cleaned just to sit in this room next to the others so you could compare them. We had lunch which was very good and a wander around the cars, The more I see the new A3 the more I like it, the lines are stunning and it looks very good. The models we would be using is the SE model and the Sport. The SE had the 1.6 TDI and sport the 2.0 150 ps engine.
After lunch we then went into a conference room where there was a presentation by the UK managing director of Audi which showed the facts and figures and went on about the brand against the rivals etc which was ok but I was keen to get out and have a drive.
We were then called out in groups depending on the colour of the wrist band we had and my first activity was a road test in the Sport model, the road test consisted of a route that they had planned and it was a mixture of a/b roads with some dual carriage way thrown in for good measure. I have to say the car to drive is absolutely fantastic, the 150ps engine is brilliant, It has plenty of pace and it's very smooth! The steering and the ride were also fantastic I really couldn't find anything I didn't like. The model I was driving had the SD Satnav which was ok it looks fairly cheap but is a cheap satnav I guess. I would much prefer the higher one which was in the SE as it looks so much nicer and the screen appeared to be much nicer. The typing pad is cool and works really well!
So after the 30 odd mile road test it was back to Millbrook for a coffee break and a chat with others to see what they thought and everyone was very positive towards it and I didn't' hear any negative comments at all. The next part of the driving was the Bowl drive which is a high speed test bowl which has been used in many Tv car shows. It has five lanes and a max drive speed now of 130 mph but we were only going to be going to 100mph. We were told that it had been designed that if you drive to 75mph in one of the lanes you are able to let go of the wheel and the car will steer itself, we were advised to try but I couldn't resist it quickly. It honestly works, pretty cool again eh! We done about 6 laps of the bowl and the car felt again brilliant and very stable. The final part of the day was the hill section of the course which we were told where the famous James bond roll was filmed with the Aston Martin. The hill was a mixture of twists and turns designed to test the car to the max, we followed a instructor and this was by far the highlight of the day it was brilliant fun!
The day was fantastic and very well organised and I would suggest to anyone if you get the opportunity to go to Millbrook then you should as it's brilliant place!
The new A3 is a great car and I think it is going to do very well indeed, I am now 100% sold on it being my replacement when the time comes, I really don't know if I will go for the bigger ps engine as the 150ps really impressed me with its pace.
Cheers,
Si
