I hope you weren’t planning on getting much done at work in the next 20 minutes, because you’re going to want to drop everything and watch this ridiculous lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife in an Audi A2. This little five-door hatch isn’t exactly hot, but because it weighs just 1,830 pounds and could be had with as much as 110 horsepower, it’s not exactly tepid. With a few modifications, as this one has, it’s a pretty impressive track day lapper, as proved by Misha Charoudin’s recent lap video.
Of course this car was built to be an ultra-efficient family car for well-to-do European city-dwellers. It wasn’t nearly as successful in the market as the Mercedes-Benz A-class, but it still sold 180,000 units from 1999 to 2005. They were pricier than the Merc because most of the car’s construction is from aluminum to keep the weight down. This sport light mindset allowed the admittedly underpowered 1.2-liter turbodiesel version to achieve an incredible 120 miles per gallon. Autocar magazine labeled the car a triumph, “The best thing about the A2 is that it isn’t merely a design exercise. Yes, it’s a great car to look at, sit in and touch, but it’s also a riot to drive.”
In the video you’ll see that Misha can’t exactly keep up with the BMW M4s and Porsche GT3s that zip past the little Audi. That’s a side effect of the car’s gearing-limited 108 mile per hour top speed and skinny tires. The diminutive A2 was probably the slowest thing on track that day, but it managed to hold its own in the slow and technical sections of track. It sure looked like a blast, though!
Early examples of Audi’s A2 are legal to import to the U.S. now, and I’ve always wanted one. Maybe I should track one down to keep my A3 company.