► Month four with the Audi TTS
► We inspect the usability of the back seats
► For children it’s great, not when you’re 6ft 3in
How often do you use your rear seats? Giggling Caterham owners can turn the page now, but we suspect most readers would find a back-bench option a useful feature to have – even if chairs three and four are of the occasional +2 variety. And that’s exactly what lurks in the back of the TT.
As you can see from my contortions, they’re on the tight side. In fact, I’m not sure I can hand-on-heart say I could ever sit in them with anything resembling comfort – let alone safety – for even a short ride back from the pub. But then I am 6ft 3in tall and only by pushing the passenger seat right forward and cricking my neck can I fit in at all. No wonder Audi rates the seats as fit for sub-1.48m-tall folks only. Which really means children. And accommodating kids back there is indeed simplicity itself. My seven- and nine-year-olds slot in to the Audi’s second row with nary a murmur of complaint and it’s this level of practicality that marks the TT out as a more rounded sports car than something like an MX-5.
The boot’s pretty big too (it gobbles 305 litres of clobber at one swallow) and every time I lift the tailgate I smirk when I see the sticker warning of imminent decapitation should you deign to slam the boot shut when rear-seat passengers are braving those back seats. Is being ‘TT’ed a common injury at A&E wards across the country? We’d love to know…
From the driving seat
– Tight rear seats
+ Better 2+2 rather than 2+0
– 20in rims make for busy ride
+ Still loving the oomph
+ LED headlamps are mega now winter’s drawing in
Logbook: Audi TTS Coupe
Price: £40,270
As tested: £46,565
Miles this month: 1634
Total miles: 4614
Our mpg: 28.0
Official mpg: 40.9
Fuel this month: £330.61
Extra costs: £0