Audi RS5 Cabriolet first drive

A halo car for the A5 range, the brawny Audi RS5 cabriolet is a four-seat convertible that blends premium exterior and interior looks with prodigious performance and four-wheel-drive versatility.

The drop-top RS5 is powered by Ingolstadt’s gloriously meaty, hand-built 4.2-litre V8 (naturally aspirated – increasingly rare in this age of turbocharging) and produces the same 444bhp and 317lb ft as the Audi RS5 coupé.

The engine is mated to a seven-speed S-tronic dual-clutch automatic transmission, while Audi’s quattro four-wheel drive technology transfers that power to the road.

In place of the RS5 coupé’s metal roof there’s a three-layer fabric hood that retracts in 15sec at the press of a button and unfurls back into place in 17sec, all at speeds of up to 31mph.

Exterior upgrades including bigger air intakes, bespoke bumpers and flared wheel arches give the RS5 a powerful stance to suit its power output.

In the cabin, there are Nappa leather sports seats offering good body support, a chunky, flat-bottomed steering wheel and the kind of quality fixtures and finishings on which Audi has built its reputation.

With a price nudging £70k even before your pen hovers over the options boxes, it isn’t the cheapest way to experience wind-in-your-hair cruising, but it is one of the most thrilling.

Late last year we tried a left-hand-drive RS5 cabriolet on the continent, but our first test on Britain’s roads came on a sunshine-and-showers spring day that provided ample opportunity to test the automatic roof mechanism.

When the three-layer fabric hood is up, the cabin is well insulated from external noise, even at motorway speeds. With the roof down, wind swirl is low and, naturally, it is the best way to appreciate the car’s full potency.

Unleashing that involves toggling through Drive Select – the system that controls the preset driver modes – to Dynamic. As an aggressive snarl emanates from the oval exhaust tailpipes, acceleration becomes even keener, the steering sharpens and the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox blurs up through the gears with single-minded intent.

Our test car was also equipped with an optional Dynamic Ride Control system that adjusts the suspension stiffness in tandem with the selected driver mode.

A kerb weight of 1920kg – 205kg more than the RS5 coupé and 15kg more than its main rival, the auto-equipped BMW M3 convertible – gives the engine a fair amount of heft to haul, but it’s hard not to be impressed by the vivacity with which it accelerates from a standstill or serves up mid-range urge.

Slowing down, a task performed by 365mm front and 324mm rear discs, is effective in most situations, although you’re offered the occasional extra reminder of the car’s weight if you have to call on the stoppers in a hurry.

The RS5 cabriolet gets specific spring, damper and anti-roll settings and suspension that’s 20mm lower than the standard A5 cabriolet, and for a big car it feels responsive during cornering. You feel slightly detached from the action, however, possibly as a result of the torque vectoring and trick differential technology that’s redistributing the available power to the wheels and doing some of the hard work on your behalf.