Raising the roof is light work!

4:02am Friday 2nd May 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Audi are innovators. They've made great strides in recent years launching premium cars which people really want.

You fancy a two-seater sports car? The TT is arguably the most desirable and fashionable on the road.

You want a huge 4x4? Well, the Q7 gives everything including the Range Rover a run for its money.

How about a four-seater cabriolet? Well, it's hard to look beyond the A4.

Now Audi are busy plugging the gaps, one by one. There's a Q5 (a smaller, fashionable 4x4) on the way and, before long there will be a stunningly understated RS6 estate car offering Ferrari pace and estate car space.

But arguably the most important model of the lot is the new A3 convertible, due on sale later this month. It's Audi's first venture in the compact cabriolet market.

It pulls a few surprises. Firstly, it's cheaper than you might expect - costing from just over £20,000 - which will give many of its rivals palpitations.

Secondly, it's a soft-top rather than a hard-top. Most convertibles these days use metal roofs which fold away into the boot.

The benefit of this system is that the car is, arguably, more secure and quieter to ride in. The drawbacks are that metal roofs weight a lot and need plenty of storage space.

Audi have gone for the soft-top version, a move which may be surprising. Their reasoning: people who drive soft-tops prefer them to look like soft-tops. Cue raised eyebrows!

I must say the car does benefit from better ride and handling because of the light hood. And the boot space is huge for a car of this size.

They expect it to do very well indeed and anticipate its popularity to contribute to the phenomenal success of the A3 range with sales expected to exceed the two million mark this year.

The design and positioning of the hood has allowed Audi to create a practical four-seater cabriolet. It may be shorter than the A3 Sportback, but it is still able to seat four passengers reasonably comfortably.

Choosing to stick with a soft-top has yielded another major advantage. Speed.

Unlike the metal folding roofs that seem to take an age to fold away, the A3's folding roof takes a mere nine seconds. That's 13 seconds faster than BMW's 1 Series. It'll even drop its top at speeds of up to 19mph.

There are two specification levels available, Standard and Sport, the latter has a lowered suspension and adds 17-inch alloys, a wind deflector, automatic air conditioning and aluminium and chrome touches.

An S-line, a more performance oriented version, will be available later this year.

The steering has been kept light and effortless, yet provides decent feedback, which is just what you want for when cruising serenely about, while the 2.0 TDI engine, with its 140bhp, has plenty of power.

The cabin is traditional Audi: logical, neat and youthful without being gimmicky. The hood is available in black, blue and red all of which complement the two new paint colours, Tungsten Grey and Glass Blue, nicely.