Audi A5 Cabriolet 2.0 TDI S tronic review

A right chip off the old block: supremely well-made, tactfully good-looking and mellow to drive in all the ways you’d mostly hope for. Much of the latter quality can be attributed to the engine, which gnashes gently at idle but then smoothes promptly out to provide the kind of muffled, well-mannered and attentive power source that you want in a car which never aspires to set your ruffled hair alight.

Undoubtedly a lighter kerbweight and the addition of the dual-clutch automatic transmission grease its effort at every turn. The weight loss isn’t monumental at 55kg – and the car overall isn’t featherlight at 1690kg either – but 295lb ft of torque from 1750rpm makes short work of the effort, and the gearbox’s fluttering shifts could hardly be more adept at keeping you in the motor’s most productive range.

Impatience can result in 0-62mph in 8.3sec – exposing you to a negligible edge of gravelly voice – but the drivetrain hardly feels strained by the effort and nor does the chassis, making the option of a quattro-driven rear axle seem mildly frivolous. Nothing the Cabriolet does smacks of authentic sportiness, of course – it remains too straightforward and unambiguous for handling novelty to ever prosper – but that doesn’t limit its usability or its easily found swiftness.

By default, the S line has lower-riding suspension, but given the firmness of the low-speed ride on the optional, adaptive comfort suspension fitted to our test car, we’d suggest you avoid the passive standard setup (the same goes for the 19in wheels of our test car, too). Otherwise, refinement is generally decent, if negated somewhat by the stiff breeze which inevitably rolls around the four-seat interior if you’ve neglected to go through the 20sec rigmarole of putting up the plastic wind deflector.

The roof takes 2sec less to erect, and the A5 Cabriolet is unimpeachably quiet once you’ve done so. The rest of the interior, it hardly needs to be added, is of first-rate order. A minor lengthening of the car's wheelbase hasn’t drastically improved rear leg room, but it was already decent, and with reasonably generous headroom, the A5 remains a genuine four-seater with the boot space to match. 

The A5 Cabriolet is arguably a better niche filler than even the regular A5 – the slightly more leisurely, wind-in-your-hair undertow helping to negate the coupé’s failure to invigorate on a deeper dynamic level.

Obviously the A5 Cabriolet, despite handsome price tags across the board, isn’t intended to plunder Porsche 718 Boxster buyers, but there are few soft-tops which can claim precisely the same mix of status, space and stylishness for the money. That the diesel model throws in big-range fuel economy and just about the right level of performance simply reinforces the idea that the A5 Cabriolet's likely popularity is probably well-deserved.