TOPLESS ENJOYMENT

摘要

This is quite a year for anniversaries in the car world. Audi, Bugatti and Morgan have all reached their centenaries, and it is the MINI'S half-century. Audi is first to kick off the celebrations, with the launch of its new glamour model, the A5 Cabriolet. Although the trend elsewhere for open-top cars has headed down the road of folding steel roof coupe-cabriolets, Audi has opted to stay true to a traditional soft-top. The open air A5 has a multi-layered canvas roof, like its predecessor the A4 Cabriolet. Soft-top roofs have some advantages over retractable steel roofs, especially for a performance model. They are lighter, enabling the car to be quicker, and they ensure that it is always identifiable as a convertible, even when the roof is up. Coupe-Cabriolets tend to lose their identity with the lid closed, and suffer from compromised boot space. Neither of which was what Audi wanted.