The Audi A3 of the 8P generation was the longest-running A3 ever. The fact that it was able to successfully last for so long was largely due to the change that came very soon after its introduction.
The Audi A3 that appeared on the market in 2003 had a pretty sleek and minimalist design. Something that has earned the Italian designer Walter de’Silva quite a bit of praise for more of his creations. What especially betrays that you have an older copy in front of you is the lack of the so-called ‘single frame grille’.
That new grille appeared in 2004, just a year after the introduction of the second generation A3. This was related to the arrival of the A3 Sportback, the five-door version. Initially, the A3 was only available as a three-door, so Audi immediately decided to introduce the new front with the five-door. The revised grille gave the A3 a considerably more modern appearance, so the three-door joined in 2005. Just two years after its introduction, the three-door A3 already had a new face. At the back it stayed with the well-known story.
That early change for the three-door was also the biggest exterior change the A3 8P would go through. However, that does not alter the fact that a second modernization was carried out in 2008. In that year Audi introduced a third variant of the A3: the Cabrio. It had, among other things, a subtly sharpened nose with extra folds from the hood towards the grille. It also had a more tidy and slightly differently arranged front bumper and a single-frame grille filled with slats instead of a grid. New headlights, optionally with LED lighting, and ditto taillights provided an extra refresher. Once again, the three-door was slightly behind, because it only benefited from these innovations later that year. The same was true for the A3 Sportback.
The second facelift of the Audi A3 8P
It was not until 2013 that the curtain fell completely for the A3 8P. One generation of the compact Audi thus overlapped two generations of its cousin, the Volkswagen Golf. With the Golf VI, however, there was mainly talk about a new generation because the appearance had been significantly overhauled, the A3 8P and the Golf V and VI were simply on the same platform called PQ35.
Because the change from the ‘primal’ A3 8P to the version with the new grille was the largest, we focus on that in the poll. What did you find most successful?
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl