At the risk of getting some serious flaming for my suggestion - what about the Corsa VXR? 
www.Vauxhall.co.uk/vxr
Not much smaller than a Golf or TT, but still roomy, and great as a 2nd car. A mad 192PS from a 1.6 litre 4-pot turbo, 140mph, 0-60 in 6.8s, 308mm front anchors, tasty blue calipers, 17 or 18 inch alloys . . .
And before anyone slates me - Vauxhalls are identical to Opels, and Opels are German, and built by Adam Opel GmbH. Vauxhall/Opels are on a par with other German cars with regard to structural strength (unlike Fords!), and usually get 5 stars in EuroNCAP crash tests. I sence some "badge snobbery" may be an issue though.
If I were in the market for a small pocket rocket, then the Corsa VXR would be very high on my shopping list - afterall, what equivalents to VW have? And no, I would never take a Seat. The only comparable (decent) VAG car is the Å koda Fabia vRS - a real cracker, but they don't make em anymore!
TT either your on a wind up or you dont know Newgolf.
I guarantee he will spit his coffee all over puter when he sees that recommendation 
TC, you know me too well mate! I nearly dropped my glass of wine!
T_T , I enjoyed your threads and thought you were a man of great knowledge and I respected that

Now I'm not so sure. Recommending a poxhall on here, are you nuts?

I'd rather cut my knob off than drive a Vauxhall, call it badge snobbery or whatever you like, they just give me the creeps. I'm entitled to my opinion, and its that they are cr@p, I've test driven them so I can honestly say that. The wife wouldn't even test drive them, she would never live it down if she was seen in one!
Egbert, RS4 is too wide, too thirsty and too expensive to run and live with mate.
T88OMM and SteveP, her last car was a B7 S4, so the powers not an issue trust me! She used to regularly blast past me on the way to work in the mornings!
My cunning plan is to "borrow" it as often as I can, as I'd love the S3 as our second car, and would remap it as fast as possible....

Gaz any comments as you have come from the ED30 to the S3, I'd appreciate your thoughts bud
