A Romantic Car with Substance
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Soft tops are romantic cars. Everyone will covet to driving with a soft-top car, especially one that is made by Audi.
The latest of Audi’s design is the A3 Cabriolet, the company’s first foray into the compact cabriolet market.
Audi is known to make intelligent cars. Audi makes much of the A3 Cabriolet’s lower centre of gravity compared to folding hard top cars. This is key because fitting a lot of electric motors, rigid panels and strengthening high in the body, as many folding metal hard-top models do, has all sorts of repercussions for weight distribution.
The A3 Cabriolet brakes feature big ventilated discs up front, a specially tuned stability control system has been developed for the car and slick six speed manual gearboxes are standard across the board. As an option, buyers of the 2.0-litre-engined cars can also go for the revolutionary twin-clutch S tronic gearbox with shift paddles mounted behind the steering wheel and a mode that replicates a conventional automatic ‘box.
The A3 Cabriolet hood has two versions ; semi or fully automatic version, the latter of which includes additional acoustic insulation and raises in just nine seconds at speeds of up to 30km/h. A heated glass rear window is standard and the fully automatic hood can be operated via the key fob. Other highlights are the optional R8-style daytime running LEDs in the headlamp pod.
There are various different engines to choose from, the main range made up of direct injection powerplants with turbochargers to plump up power and torque. There are two diesels, the first a 104bhp 1.6-litre TDI unit and the second a 138bhp 2.0-litre TDI engine. The petrol engines open with a 102bhp 1.6, then there’s the 1.8-litre TFSI unit, good for 158bhp, with the flagship of the line up being the 197bhp 2.0-litre TFSI engine. Prices start at around £20,000.
The standard model comes with the semi-automatic roof with electric windows all round. Go for the Sport and you’ll get the fully automatic acoustic roof, 17-inch aluminium wheels, front fog lights and sports seats and suspension.
The engines used are all very modern powerplants with a reputation for offering a decent compromise between performance, fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions. The two diesel models give good fuel economy. Even the more powerful of the two oil burners will return 53.6mpg, yet can crack the sprint to 60mph in just 9.6 seconds. Emissions already undercut the future Euro5 standards.
People drive the the A3 Cabriolet because they want to look good, although they say the A3 is no looker. Anyway, A3 Cabriolet has great substance and buyers will need to appreciate the fact. The Cabriolet is stylish too but as they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Nevertheless, if it can maintain even 70 per cent of the A3 hatch’s driving manners, it’ll be the best four seater compact cabriolet by a country mile.
The cabriolet has substance over styling, and that’s important.
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