Road Test
Picture this: You're at a dealership eyeing the latest zooty roadster. You've taken the test drive. It made all your body hairs tingle, and now you're seeing yourself in it on weekend mornings, blowing out the cobwebs.
Then your more practical significant other chimes in: "Where are we going to put the kids? And how is that thing going to get up our snowy driveway?" You almost ask, "Who is this person?" But you know the truth: You're busted.
Not so fast. Over at the Audi store sits The Answer: the new S4 cabriolet-a $56,270, 340-hp V-8-powered convertible that has none of the usual sports-car impracticalities, not to mention four seats to placate whatsername and all the goodies.
The S4 is the latest in Audi's expansive A4 line. At the bottom is the $25,970 A4 sedan that's powered by a turbocharged 170-hp four-cylinder engine. Until this S4 cabriolet debuted, the top model was the S4 sedan (the "S" prefix denotes the hot-rod model), a $48,070 four-door with a 340-hp V-8 and standard six-speed manual transmission. In between, there are three body styles-sedan, wagon, and convertible-and a variety of engines and transmissions. The Quattro four-wheel-drive system is available or standard on all models.
The S4 sedan is one of our sweethearts. It won a comparison test in May 2003 Compact ("Adrenaline-Delivery Systems") and snagged a spot on this year's 10Best Cars list. Its combination of burly V-8 power, tautly beautiful sheetmetal, and four-wheel-drive sure-footedness is unbeatable in this segment of the car market. We all expected the droptop version to be just as sweet and, well, basically, it is.
The transformation from sedan to convertible has, however, added 309 power-sapping pounds to the 3864-pound sedan. There's a multitude of guilty parties, but the main culprits are the steel body reinforcements that must attend a convertible and the heavy, motor-operated softtop. There's also a pair of protective steel hoops that automatically extend from the rear bulkhead if sensors detect an accident.
The extra weight spells softer performance. The sprint to 60 mph took 5.8 seconds-0.8 second slower than the sedan. The quarter-mile time worsened from 13.6 seconds at 103 mph to 14.3 seconds at 98 mph. There was one major advance: The S4 sedan has a governed top speed of 130 mph, and although Audi says the S4 cabriolet has a 155-mph top-speed limiter, our test car ran to 162 before the limiter hollered.
There are two direct competitors to the S4 cab: the $57,295 BMW M3 convertible and the $81,970 Mercedes-Benz CLK55 AMG cabriolet. We've only tested the quicker Bimmer, which gets to 60 in 5.1 seconds and turns the quarter in 13.7 seconds at 104 mph.
The S4's straight-line speed feels plenty quick, though, and is about equal to that of a pair of sharp roadsters, the Porsche Boxster and the Nissan 350Z. But those sports don't offer four-wheel drive, a feature that's standard on the S4 with either the standard six-speed manual or the $1150 six-speed automatic.
