2017 Audi A3 vs BMW 1 Series

What's the difference?

You know when you reckon you've got the room, you've got some great stories in the chamber and everyone's looking at you and then someone else walks in. That someone else has an effortless style and sophistication, doesn't try too hard, just looks great all the time?

BMW and Mercedes know that person. It's called the Audi A3. It outsells the BMW 1 Series by two to one and even beats the Mercedes A Class home (although if you add the CLA, not so much). From 2015 to 2016, market share of the segment it occupies has grown from a quarter to almost a third.

So there’s probably no point in updating it, right? Wrong. Because it’s now four years old and BMW and Mercedes have been chucking the kitchen at their cars to try and catch up, knowing Audi has something up its sleeve.

And here is - a refreshed A3 with new technology, new engines and some of the more subtle styling changes you’ll see, even for an Audi.

The new iPhone 8 boasts a host of features device nerds are falling over themselves to acquire, yet it kinda sorta looks the same as the iPhone 7. All the wireless charging, bionic chippery, and retina screenage isn't exactly visible to the naked eye (pun intended).

Which is broadly analogous to BMW's new and improved 1 Series. It's been upgraded. It even has a better screen, but you'd be hard pressed to tell from the outside. Sadly for BMW, people won't line up around the block to buy a new 1.

This is the second product cycle upgrade for the current 1 Series, following the release of new, more efficient engines in 2016.

Most of the changes are on the price and specification list, with BMW sharpening its pencil on the top model, and fattening up the numbers at the lower end of the range.

But that's largely because standard equipment packages have been enhanced, and the tricky iDrive6 multimedia system is now standard across the 1 Series line-up. Other, more technical enhancements, are also mostly hidden on the inside.