Comparison: new Audi TT versus BMW M235i

The test car also rides on optional 19-inch wheels – £450, please – and has various other extras fitted that raise its price above that of the BMW in its basic form (£36,150 versus £34,260, remember) assuming that they both come with the standard-issue six-speed manual gearbox. In this case, the BMW is fitted with the optional eight-speed auto but, even so, its price still remains beneath that of the options-heavy Audi, at £35,900.

That’s another reason why we felt that this comparison was valid – because, in simple terms, the BMW just seems to represent far better value than the new TT.

How so? Because thumping away beneath its bonnet, the M235i also happens to have a turbocharged straight six engine that produces 321bhp, with 332lb ft appearing between 1300rpm and 4500rpm.

So despite the M235i weighing a considerable 225kg more than the featherweight Audi, it still murders its rival in a straight line. BMW’s quoted 0-62mph time is 4.8sec for the automatic version (5.0sec for the manual) and we’ve already figured the car at not a lot more than 10sec to 100mph. In reality, we are talking about a fair old chasm between them in terms of pure, straight-line performance.

And that’s before you consider the fact that the BMW is rear-wheel drive, whereas this particular TT is not four-wheel drive but merely front-wheel drive. There is also no clever differential to help the Audi make its prodigious torque stick. So dynamically, it seems, the TT wanders into battle in this case with at least a couple fingers tied behind its back.

Read the full BMW M235i review

Or does it? Because there are two more fairly major factors that need to be considered when comparing these two cars, neither of which appears on any spec sheet, and they both centre on the extra sense of style and expense that the TT seems to carry with it, inside and out.

For although its styling may be familiar to the point of mild disappointment, the new TT still looks by far the more arresting and interesting of the two in the metal. Its detailing is full of surprise and delight, none more so than the rear indicator lights, which bleed their orange light gracefully towards the outside of the car as they flash.

Inside, too, the new Audi TT looks and feels if not a million dollars then at least a good deal more expensive than the BMW, which is perfectly good to sit in but nowhere near as sophisticated visually.

The view forward in the TT is also cleaner, and you sit lower behind its hard, thick-rimmed leather wheel. It feels more overtly sporting to be in as a result, whereas the BMW gives the impression of being more conventional, less exciting and a little bit more ordinary.

And the moment you press the TT’s starter button and its new TFT instrument screen comes to life, right before your eyes, the sense of being inside an intrinsically newer and more interesting car goes up a notch again. 

Some will no doubt find the TT’s digitised and multi-adjustable instrument display a vulgar and counter-intuitive aside to the main event. These will almost certainly be the sort of people who prefer the BMW’s more traditional analogue instruments, featuring an identically sized speedo and rev counter and so on. But the new TT has not been designed to suit such people, and that’s fine.

The most interesting thing to observe is just how different these two cars look and feel when you sit behind their leather-lined steering wheels.

On the move, the new TT is far less radical in its intentions. Audi has striven to remove as much weight as possible from the car, and you notice that from the moment it starts to move. There is a lightness of touch here, a delicacy to its response, that has been almost entirely absent until now. Which is good news number one for TT fans.

Number two is that Audi’s engineers have also made the strut and multi-link suspension feel as smooth but also as sharp as possible on the move, and the same goes for the new electro-mechanically assisted steering, which is again light but supremely accurate and precise, even if it doesn’t exactly ripple with feel.

The Audi is decently rapid, even with a mere 227bhp to call upon. Not to the point where you could ever call it properly, seriously fast, but there’s enough energy beneath your right foot to make any cross-country journey a lot more than just mildly interesting.

Despite its apparent lack of power and its theoretical absence of traction, the TT can easily keep up with the M235i in most circumstances, unless a complete madman is at the wheel of the BMW. 

Even if the M235i is in the hands of an unhinged driver, the TT is far less likely to be the one that engages with the undergrowth during a back-to-back blast across the sort of soaking wet roads that we found in Scotland.

This is because, although the new TT feels more alert, perkier and more incisive in everything that it does on the move, its core behaviour retains the same fundamental sense of security that has always been there.

There are, however, at least three issues, which are brought into sharper focus still beside the BMW.

One, despite its suspension having been tuned to be more complete this time around, the TT’s ride still isn’t great, at least not compared to the BMW’s.

There is a calmness to the BMW’s damping, at both high and low speeds, that simply isn’t there in the TT. On really poor surfaces, the Audi can still feel pretty neurotic by comparison.

Read the 2014 Audi TT coupé first drive review

Two, the TT’s outright braking power might be excellent, as ever, but the feel and weighting of its brake pedal is once again too flaky and, more to the point, too light. It’s still far too easy to stand the nose into the floor during light applications, even if there is better feel and weight to the pedal when you really lean on it.

Again, the BMW shows the Audi the way home here, with much better brake feel and much better weighting of its controls right across the board, from its power steering to its throttle to its brakes.

Three, there is the constantly nagging issue of their respective engines – the way they sound, the way they go and the way they respond to a good old-fashioned wallop of throttle.

Yes, I know there’s a power and price difference – although, as we’ve shown, the price gap is narrower than it appears – but the fact is that when you jump from the BMW to the Audi, the first thing you notice on the move is the noise that it doesn’t make. And the acceleration that it doesn’t have. And the performance that it quite clearly lacks beside the rocket-sled that is the M235i.

The BMW not only sounds eight times more delicious than the TT, but it also goes a good two times harder subjectively. It’s not twice as quick, of course, but the thing about having 332lb ft available from just 1300rpm is that it makes the BMW feel quicker than it actually is, whereas, conversely, the TT is quicker than it actually feels. The Audi is also quicker than it sounds, and in the ‘how exciting are they to drive?’ stakes, such subjective things matter more than they should.

Elsewhere, the BMW edges it in places and the Audi nudges back in others. The M235i has by far the better rear seats. The TT’s are for nippers and extra luggage only whereas full-grown adults can just about squeeze into the back of the BMW.

The two boots are of a similar size on paper but, again, you can get more stuff into the better-shaped boot of the BMW. But then the Audi is a good 5mpg more economical in the real world, is cleaner, and costs less to run as a company car.

The verdict

In the end, the BMW can’t help but win because it is, without question, the more exciting of the two to drive. It’s faster, sounds nicer, steers, rides and handles with more panache, and has more room in it. For £36k, it remains one of the very best-value, genuine high-performance cars on sale right now.

But the TT is far from disgraced by it overall, which is very much to its credit in this instance. Fact is we sent the new TT into battle carrying less firepower, a smaller price and with a reputation for dynamic brilliance that was far from proven, and it has emerged on the other side still standing against one of our most revered driver’s cars. Still with its head held high, in fact.

So although the BMW wins, and wins easily, in a sense the new TT does, too. Now all it needs to do is square up to the Porsche Cayman and not get mortally injured and the picture will be complete. But that’s another story for another day.

Read Autocar's previous comparison - Bentley Continental GT Speed versus Mercedes S63 AMG coupé