Review of the new Audi A4 Cabriolet - Long TermTest

Jeremy Clarkson could have a field day on this one. Is a 3.0-litre TDI Audi A4 Cabriolet cool because on paper and (arguably) on the road, the 3.0-litre TDI is the best engine in the range? Is it also because a diesel A4 Cabriolet is an unorthodox, free-thinking choice, marking its owner out as someone who doesn't follow the heard - and who knows the smoky, clattery diesel stereotypes are no longer valid? Alternatively, is the 3.0-litre TDI Audi A4 Cabriolet uncool because it's a diesel A4 Cabriolet? I wouldn't profess to know and quite frankly, I don't care. All that matters is I've got one.

At least 50 per cent (and probably more) of what makes up a good cabriolet is image. How it looks, how you look in it, what it says about you and how many heads it can turn on a trip down a typical urban thoroughfare on a warm July afternoon. People don't buy cabriolets for practical reasons, they buy cabriolets as fashion statements, as tools for showing off in. All of which kind of makes you wonder about Audi's 3.0-litre TDI Cabriolet. Is it a bit too efficient for its own good?

That was what we decided to find out by adding one to our long term test fleet. To properly test the car, we ordered ours in the middle of winter, the time when most drop-tops feel most uncomfortable and when faults are easiest to see.

The delivery of the car reminded me that despite its lack of the trendy folding metal roof mechanism used by most of its rivals, Audi's A4 Cabriolet has still got that key cabriolet criteria of image down to a tee. Audi do cool, understated sophistication better than almost anyone else and the A4 Cabriolet deftly treads that fine line between the naff and the ostentatious that any good drop-top must brave.

On one side of the tightrope, you have the plebs, the wannabes, the family hatches with their roofs sawn off rattling and shuddering their way to the scrap heap. On the other, you've got otherwise competent models that just try too hard. Prestige saloons, sports cars and proper supercar exotica, all minus their overhead metalwork, vehicles that only succeed in making their driver look like the most insufferable show-off. In an A4 Cabriolet, any showing-off that you do indulge in is made to look purely accidental, an inadvertent side effect of a trip to the shops. That's its beauty.

"Audi's A4 Cabriolet has still got that key cabriolet criteria of image down to a tee.."

On the subject of beauty, I don't see the lack of a folding metal roof as a drawback. Convertibles with swiss army knife-style metal tops are always stylistically compromised and a car designed around a roof is never a very pretty thing, as BMW's latest 3 Series Convertible demonstrates aptly in my opinion. With the designer's pen not limited in this case by the roof mechanism, this Audi is free to be as beautiful as all cabrios should be. In this car, you don't need to worry about weight of all that metalwork blunting performance and harming the handling. Or indeed impinging on boot space when the roof's down. For all these reasons, Audi's decision to keep faith with a fabric top is one of the reasons why I wanted to keep faith with this car. Please Ingolstadt, please don't change things when it comes (rather soon now) to the new generation model.

So, this car has got the image stakes pretty much wrapped-up but what about its engine - the 230bhp 3.0-litre TDI diesel? Put simply, it's an excellent unit, virtually as fast as the 3.2-litre V6 FSI petrol engine and yet returning average fuel economy figures that are superior to the weedy entry-level 1.8-litre Turbo. Better still, it's packing 450Nm of torque between 1,400 and 3,250rpm which is more than the 4.2-litre V8 in the S4 cabriolet. This engine gives the A4 Cab effortless cruising ability, with vast waves of torque washing around the mid-range to surge you through overtaking manoeuvres and devour the severest of inclines. It's the perfect engine for a Cabriolet in many ways, relaxed and powerful but with good fuel economy to inject a degree of commonsense that's not usually prevalent in this sector of the market.

The 3.0-litre TDI's problem is that those acutely image-conscious cabriolet buyers who are drawn to the A4 Cabriolet probably won't want to drive a diesel one. This variant after all, is second only to the S4 in terms of price at £33,545. That's going to look expensive to many, even though the engine's impressive figures would appear to justify the premium.

Available only with the four-wheel-drive quattro transmission system, the 3.0-litre TDI A4 Cabriolet comes with a six-speed manual gearbox but can be specified with the 6-speed tiptronic set-up fitted to our test car if you so desire. I haven't found the automatic option to be particularly fluent but for more image-conscious customers than me, it'll mean a hand free more of the time for waving nonchalantly at passers-by. Standard equipment is fairly generous with the 3.0TDI getting a 6-CD autochanger and satellite navigation but if you want to make more of a visual impact, there are Sport and S-Line packs which add bigger wheels and all sorts of styling accessories.

The interior is typically well constructed and the hood is folded away neatly and without fuss at speeds of up to 20mph by holding a switch next to the handbrake. Rear legroom is fairly awful but the space provided for those in the front is far more like it. There's also a decent-sized boot when the hood's up.

The ride is smooth as a cabriolet's should be, although the S-Line models do firm things up a touch for buyers wanting a sportier experience. Most of the feedback that reaches the driver comes through the suspension as the steering feels quite dead but there's plenty of scope to press-on and have some fun.

Overall? Well, the A4 Cabriolet still has what it takes - which is impressive for a car as far into its development cycle as this one. Come on now, is there really a more desirable drop-top in the £25,000-£35,000 price bracket? No, I thought not..