After debuting an all-new generation, stretching it enough to fit four doors, stretching a little more to compose a very attractive sedan and having all these in both urban and sporty versions, it’s time for Audi’s compact line to drop the top. Like many other cars, A3 decided not to wait for the official debut at Frankfurt and had this avant-première only two days before it, although there were some leaked images published on the Internet earlier. Now you’ll be able to check the official details of Germany’s latest cabriolet.
It doesn’t take more than looking to any group of Audi cars from the same time to notice this is one of the most rigid automakers when it comes to car styling. Some people criticize the fact of they all look excessively alike, while others prefer to admire the company’s talent on extending the same concept into so many different styles and sizes of automobiles. But besides this “horizontal integration” between all the current cars, many companies like to invest on making a car’s new generation remind of the previous, whether for its styling or more particular aspects like driving characteristics.
Given that German automakers are very traditional, it’s easy to deduce that they would be very fond of that strategy, too: Audi has always preferred to concentrate its biggest changes to the technical area, rather than creating design revolutions. This is why A3’s hatchback versions look so much like their older phases (there has been a sedan only in the current one), despite being so much more modern… and this is why the cabriolet seems to give a different feeling, though. If you couldn’t figure out what is it, searching photos will do the trick: the new A3 Cabriolet looks much more like its bigger brother A5 than its own previous generation.
This comes from the fact that the old A3 turned out not so well-proportioned to be a good-looking cabriolet. It had full-opening roof and everything else, but not the elegance to convince the category’s fans to give up on the direct competitors for it: this version needed something else, but it was hard to figure what would it be, exactly. Such problem could be solved only at this time, mostly because Audi could use a strategy that wasn’t available before: deriving the cabriolet from the sedan’s longer body, rather than the hatchback’s. A3 became much better-proportioned with that: 18 cm longer, 2 cm longer wheelbase, 2 cm wider and 1,5 cm shorter.
Nevertheless, as classier as Cabriolet might’ve become, analyzing it gives any surprises only at that aspect. The others only remind that this is one more A3 version, which means the interior is almost the same and MQB platform appears once again, bringing stiffer construction, lightweight parts, TSI and TDI engine options (from 140 hp to 180 hp) and S-Tronic double-clutch gearbox – the difference is this time they’re paired to Cabriolet’s cloth top whose fully-electric operation takes eighteen seconds and can be done until at 50 kph. This car will receive quattro traction and S3 variation (300-hp 2.0L) shortly after the German event.
