After a beach-side lunch break in Malibu, where we checked out hip and practical A3 add-ons available through Audi dealers such as fashionable wheels, a functional roof rack for sports equipment, and distinctive interior trim and sill plates, the real drive began.

Mulholland Highway, a solitary stretch of serpentine tarmac in the Santa Monica Mountains, is a dream drive for any car enthusiast. Despite the fact that you’re only a scooch more than a stone’s throw from L.A., its sheer drop-offs into canyons on one side of the roadway, and raked cliff walls on the other, allow no opportunity for sloppy motoring or mediocre handling when driving at speed. We arrived at the Mulholland swath of road after enough seat time to know that the A3’s 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder engine is responsive, trust that the A3’s brakes are effective; and understand that the A3’s suspension is stiff yet compliant to make you feel glued to the pavement in tight corners. It was here that we discovered, although there is no bad choice between the two gearboxes, one of the Audi A3’s transmissions stands out as a gem.

When it comes to the 2006 Audi A3, you can row your own gears, if you must. The six-speed manual transmission propelled the speedometer needle past 40 mph in first gear, and got the A3 to the 80 mark in third gear. We trusted Audi’s zero-to-60 claim of 6.9 seconds for this transmission, but fell head-over-heels for the Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG), which scoots the A3 even faster to sixty, in just 6.7 seconds. All without using a clutch.

Was our love of the A3’s DSG a relationship founded on two-tenths of a second? Hardly! First experienced in the TT roadster nearly a year ago, Audi’s automatic DSG offers four options for driving, and therein lays the magic. Driven in “D”— fully automatic mode – the A3 upshifts to second gear too quickly and too transparently, and this mode also produced too much shifting up and down when driving in traffic. The sport setting, “S,” is better because it holds gears longer, and provides a set-and-forget enthusiastic drive for those who appreciate an enhanced throttle note. Best was the “manual mode.” With an intuitive forward shift pattern for taller gears and rearward for smaller gears, and technologically-brilliant engine programming that ‘blips’ the throttle to match engine revs when you downshift, the manual mode can actually rev into the redline before upshifting. Fast-reacting paddles on the steering wheel can add to the fun, But when they’re out of position in hard corners, you can simply switch back to manual throws with the gear lever.