This is the 2026 Audi RS3 Competition Limited and it serves not only as the full-stop model on this generation of the RS3 itself, but a final, fond farewell to the German automaker’s long-serving five-cylinder engine.
Available in both Sportback hatch and Sedan body styles, just 750 examples of the RS3 Competition Limited will be made for all global markets – and Australia will receive 18 of them, split into 10 Sportbacks and eight Sedans.
There’s no word on pricing, but in its native Germany the Competition Limited is certainly not cheap; at just beyond €100,000, it’s about 43 per cent more expensive than the base price of a standard RS3 Sportback, which in Australia is $104,800 before on-road costs.
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That said, it comes with a lot of the otherwise-optional kit, and there are certain components which are unique to the Competition Limited and not available on any other variant, no matter how much money you throw at your Audi dealer.
Chief among these is advanced coilover suspension. This comprises twin-tube dampers which are stainless steel at the front and aluminium at the rear, with the items at the nose of the car also fitted with external reservoirs.
At the rear, there are larger-diameter shock-absorber tubes with thicker piston rods, and a thicker and stiffer anti-roll bar too.
Audi’s done this trick with generation-ending RS model variants to impressive effect before – both the B9-series RS4 Avant, which gained coilovers in late Competition form, and the magnificent C8-series RS6 GT Avant employed the same suspension setup.
For the RS3, Audi will sell the Competition Limited with a road-biased setup, as well as a recommended ‘track’ tune plus a full toolkit – with instructions – for adjusting the various settings of the coilovers, and also raising or lowering the car’s ride height.
For reference, the RS3 Competition Limited has 12 settings of low-speed compression, 15 settings of high-speed compression and 16 settings of rebound to play with, all adjusted on the suspension towers themselves (or their top mounts), with simple ‘+/-’ markers for each.
That means adjusting the way the Competition Limited rides and handles will require some proper mechanical work, rather than simply tapping a button in the cabin.
But Audi says all owners will need to do is to lift the car in the air on a ramp as no wheel-arch liners nor other bits of trim have to be removed to fiddle with any of the compression or rebound settings.
You’ll need to pop the wheels off if you want to raise or lower the ride height, and the Competition Limited can be dropped 10mm closer to the tarmac than any other RS3 if an owner so desires.
What else is special about the Audi RS3 Competition Limited?
The other detail which is unique to the Competition Limited special is matte-effect carbon-fibre on the outside.
You’ll spot it in several places, such as on the door sills, the mirror caps and above the rear diffuser, but it is also applied to several features which are specific to the limited-edition RS3 – notably, the roof spoiler on the Sportback (there’s a lip item on the rear decklid of the Sedan), the divided-in-the-middle front splitter, and the new canards on either corner of the Audi’s nose.
Beyond that, and a discreet ‘RS3 Competition Limited’ decal in the rear-quarterlight windows of the back doors, what distinguishes the most special variant of Audi’s five-pot wonder are the body colours and wheels.
On the former score, there are just three shades available, two of which – Daytona Grey metallic and Glacier White matte – are offered on other RS3s.
However, the special finish that is unique to this model is Malachite Green. It’s the first time this lustrous shade has been seen on any Audi since the road-going version of the outstanding Sport Quattro short-wheelbase of the 1980s.
This finish is complemented by the Neodymium Gold (remember this colour – we’ll be coming back to it for the interior) alloys, of 19 inches in diameter. These are either clothed in Pirelli P Zero tyres as standard, or optionally semi-slick Trofeo R rubber from the same manufacturer.
Peep through the 10 spokes of these rims and you’ll see both the red brake callipers of the carbon stoppers, plus the red-and-silver detailing of the coilover suspension.
A final note on the outside pertains to the locking/unlocking graphics of the LED running lights up front. When activated, these put on a display which mimics the 1-2-4-5-3 cylinder-firing order of the engine – a lightshow bespoke to the RS3 Competition Limited.
Inside the Audi RS3 Competition Limited
Neodymium Gold is the signature colour of choice inside the RS3 Competition Limited, although it’s also accompanied by Ginger White.
The gold is employed for the seat centres and some of the door cards, while the off-white then contrasts with that for the stitching and the seatbelts.
Meanwhile, in the digital instrument cluster, the background colour of the RS3 Competition Limited’s dials is pure white. This is a nod back to 1994’s RS2 Avant, which was the first car to use an RS variant of the five-cylinder engine and which, yes, had a white-backed instrument pack.
On top of all that, there are various ‘RS3 Competition Limited’ decals and graphics, including for the mirrors’ puddle lights outside, while the real highlight is the front seats – they’re exquisite, matte-carbon-backed RS sports buckets and they not only look tremendous, but they are also super-supportive to sit in.
Each of the 750 RS3 Competition Limited vehicles sold across the world will have a sequential number displayed on a special graphic situated down on the centre console.
The cars we were invited to see in person in a studio near Munich were all numbered ‘000/750’, because they were pre-production prototypes.
Incidentally, right-hand drive RS3s are slated for a quartet of markets, with the three others besides our own allocation of 18 comprised of 10 for New Zealand, 11 for the UK and then 100 for Japan, which will be the largest territory for Competition Limited after the Audi’s homeland of Germany.
Under the bonnet of the Audi RS3 Competition Limited
Interestingly, when it comes to the very thing being celebrated by the 2026 RS3 Competition Limited – its turbocharged 2.5-litre five-pot engine – buyers will get no more power than the standard car.
But when you’ve got 294kW of power and 500Nm of torque to play with, resulting in a 3.8-second claimed 0-100km/h time, then additional outputs aren’t necessary. One thing the RS3 Competition Limited does get is a raise in its speed limiter, to 290km/h.
Another interesting point: Audi has trimmed some sound-deadening out of the RS3’s firewall, so although the standard-fit sports exhaust isn’t any louder on the outside and thus meets all the mandatory worldwide noise regs, inside the cabin you get more of the five-cylinder’s flavour.
But the key thing here is the coilover suspension, which should make the most of the RS3’s latent roadholding abilities and deliver a fitting swansong for that five-cylinder engine.
Because, sadly, this is definitely a goodbye from Audi. Strict European emissions laws due to come into force in 2027 mean the company will not be taking the 2.5-litre engine any further into the future.
So, aside from its application in the Cupra Formentor VZ5 and possibly even a mooted sign-off model of the Volkswagen Golf R, the 2026 RS3 Competition Limited will be the last-ever car to carry the legendary five-cylinder powerplant – and it’s almost certainly going to be the final outing for the RS3 itself, at least as we know it.
