If you can believe it, the Audi RS Q3 has been around for 10 years. 

And, to be a bit presumptuous for a moment, we’re presuming your reaction to this news is somewhere between a Pink Floydian ‘And then one day you find... ten years have got behind you’ kind of thing and a more Ramones-ish ‘I don’t care’.

In any case, to celebrate an entire decade of being the ‘you bought a what?’ choice, the edition 10 years (the lack of capitalisation is apparently deliberate) has ‘exclusive accents, both inside and out’. Be still, our frantically fibrillating ventricles, and so on. 

What the edition 10 years translates to in real terms is a set of 21-inch wheels – pinched from the nearest Old West stagecoach, presumably – some RS-branded bucket seats, ‘jet-black applications on the instrument panel’ (your guess is as good as ours), and a paintjob in a new type of... grey. Watch out for the backdraft, because our minds have just been blown. 

The engine, however, is not something you’d sneeze at. Because that’s such a strange thing to do at the best of times, but particularly towards inanimate objects.

In other engine-related news, it remains a 2.5-litre, five-cylinder turbo – a setup that generally proves to be far more characterful than comparative four-cylinder units, Ford, that never really delivered the same aural satisfaction, Ford, even if the rest of the car practically begged for it, Ford. 

But rather than name any manufacturers that really should have kept (and kept developing) a 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine, let’s celebrate that Audi’s found a way to screw the best part of 400hp and 480Nm out of this one.

And then cut the love-in short by remembering it’s in the front of a Q3. Could such a situation be saved with a manual gearbox, instead of the standard-fit, 7spd DSG? Look, we’re willing to keep our minds open to the concept, but it feels like one of those things we’ll never have to be called on. 

All up, the ‘are you still here?’ edition is limited to 555 cars worldwide, which definitely doesn’t feel like a number plucked from the aether. If Subaru brought out a special-edition WRX McRae edition that was limited to 555 cars, that’d make a powerful amount of sense. And if in doubt, et cetera. 

STORY Craig Jamieson