Classy cabrio claims a crown

HOW pretty do you think Audi’s A5 Cabrio is?

The sleek, sinuous machine certainly turns heads as it sweeps by, and its four-ring badge and distinctive grille leave no doubt that it’s as Germanic as sauerkraut.

But it was styled by a gent called Walter de ’Silva.

And he’s an Italian.

Same bloke who designed a whole pageant of beauties for Alfa Romeo and Fiat, not to mention a concept car for Lamborghini.

He’s so good, he got poached by Volkswagen a good many years ago, quickly became VW’s head of design and has since penned the Polo, the Spanish Seat, the Audi TT, R8, and A4, 5 and 6.

“It’s the most beautiful car I’ve ever designed,” he said of the A5 Cabrio, and a lot of Germans agreed with him, because the car has since won the German design award.

However, some of those people eat pig’s trotters.

The A5 Cabrios are sold in three models in Australia: 2.0litre and 3.2litre petrol and a 3.0litre turbo-diesel, priced from $94,900 to $116,500.

We got the mid-priced turbo-diesel, which costs from $112,500.

Cabrios are becoming quite popular these days, and most of them are metal-roofed.

But the Audi has stuck to a soft-top, a triple-layered affair that does a great job when it’s up, keeping the sun and noise out, and it stows away without using up most of the boot space.

It goes up and down at the touch of a button and takes only about 15 seconds.

But, like most convertibles, there’s a sizeable blind spot at three-quarters rear.

You get a lot for your money.

Inside, there’s triple-zone climate control, auto-on wipers and headlights, electric-powered seats, leather trim, Bluetooth connection and a hot-shot sound system with an iPod interface.

The park brake is electronic, there are heated seats, 18-inch alloy wheels, wood inlays, parking sensors and a big colour data screen.

A set of bi-Xenon headlights makes night driving a pleasure.

Accommodation is generous for the two up front and comfort is assured through the fully-adjustable steering wheel and powered seats.

The rear seats are neatly sculpted, but with a tallish driver athe wheel, there’s next to no rear seat legroom.

Fortunately, the rear seat backrests are split-fold, so the long, shallow boot can be extended or made reachable from the cockpit.

Safety-wise, there’s stability control and four airbags plus rollover bars that pop up from behind the rear headrests if the car turns turtle – something most unlikely given the phenomenal grip of the quattro all-wheel drive system.

More of a boulevard cruiser than something you’d want to race about in, the A5 cabrio can still surprise with shove-in-the-back power if the situation arises.

The 3.0litre V6 turbo-diesel could have come straight from one of Audi's Le Mans racers.

It provides a head-spinning 500Nm of torque from just 1500rpm, which is enough to take the 1.9tonne car to 100km/h in 6.5 seconds.

The smooth, refined engine teams well with the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, and here’s one of the best features: with all the mumbo on tap, the car still returns an average 6.8 litres/100km (better than 40mpg in the old money).

If you want to make your A5 cabrio stand out from others, Audi has an extensive (and expensive) list of optional goodies.

But it’s a pretty comprehensive pack as it is, and there are few that can match it in terms of technology, performance and economy.

Maybe looks too. But that’s debateable and seemingly dependent on nationality.

What everyone else is thinking

Greg Ralph

04/02/2010

The A5 cabriolet is curvaceous and I do like the waistline, but Audi's are not and cannot be 'pretty' cars. The roof line is superb but the front and rear end are just Audi. A much more attractive car is the BMW threes genre and it boasts a metal roof, to boot.
This car is well equipped perhaps but it is a hefty price and Honda now builds up to this quality unfortunately they don't yet offer a comparable model to the A5C - if they did it would certainly have a greater problem selling than it does. Of course there are more snobs in Perth than there are in Chelsea and so the German cars will always have that edge with that group of buyers. For my money it still has to be the BMW 330.
GjR