Audi A3 1.8 TFSI Cabriolet

Road Test

Your Say

Audi A3 1.8 TFSI Cabriolet

Test date 02 July 2008 Price as tested £24,150

For Engine refinement, almost a proper four-seater, surpisingly entertaining to drive

AgainstPoor rear visibility, looks a little odd with the roof up, quite expensive

Audi has taken its time coming up with a drop-top version of the A3 - the current hatchback was first shown in 2003. Back then, people weren’t keen on the idea of small convertibles; the UK market was about 7000 sales. But by last year this had almost trebled to over 20,000.

Which is perhaps as well for Audi in its latest venture, the A3 cabriolet. Looked at coldly, the A3 is already over five years old and is based on the platform of the Mk5 Golf. To convert it Audi has not given it a look of its own, as has BMW with its 1-series, but simply decapitated an A3 hatch.

Moreover, that roof is not made of multiple, elegantly folding metal panels, as on the VW Eos, but is a simpler, cheaper fabric arrangement that collapses into a space behind the seats, leaving its mechanism messily exposed.

But while at first glance this approach looks expedient, to put it mildly, on closer acquaintance what seems clearest of all is that the A3 cabriolet actually works rather well.