The 400-horsepower Audi TT RS is the most polarizing sports coupe on the market — and that's what makes it great

Audi TT RS

The Audi TT is probably the most polarizing sports coupe on the market.

It's the compact, two-door, four-seater hatchback of the Audi lineup, and it's among the smallest cars the luxury automaker produces.

In its base form, the TT's 220-horsepower, four-cylinder engine doesn't necessarily inspire thoughts of track days and breakneck zero-to-60 times. It is a design-focused car. On the outside, you get tastefully sculpted fenders, shapely haunches, a stern front fascia with a piercing LED headlight array.

The 2018 TT maintains the rounded wedge aesthetic that made the tiny coupe famous when it first hit the streets in 1998.

I first drove the current generation TT back in 2016 and loved it. I was a little bit head-over-heels with it, actually. I even called it a "mini-R8," and got my inbox flooded with fan mail from people who disagreed. (Some of them made good points, to be fair).

Since then, I have driven quite a few cars — from the actualR8, in V10 Plus guise, to the Tesla Model S P100D, the Cadillac CTS-V, Lexus GS F, and many others that are far more unhinged than a base TT.

But then there's the Audi TT RS. It's still a TT, yes, but that's in name only. Everything else about it is on an entirely different stratum. It's a 400-horsepower, all-wheel-drive misfit that grunts and snarls to life when you hit the start button and barks and growls at everything on the road.

But you want to know the quickest way to become jaded about fast cars? Drive a lot of fast cars.

When Audi let me borrow a TT RS for a few days this month, I obliged, but I wasn't expecting to be impressed. It took only a few drives to change my mind.

Keep reading to find out why ...