Audi delivers drop-top diesel droner

Newswheel staff :: 11 October 2005 :: Filed under Cabriolet, Audi, Audi A4, Europe & UK

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Classy cabriolet gets four cylinder oil burner

Audi has announced that the A4 Cabriolet 2.0 TDi will indeed be making its way across the channel to England’s green and pleasant, but increasingly diesel-particulate-dusted, land. On sale in early 2006 for a piffling £26,500, the car produces 138bhp and 236 lb/ft of torque, rumbles to 60mph in a slightly sprightly 9.7 seconds and achieves 43.9mpg in the combined cycle. Of course, the new 2.0TDi receives the same gawping-grille front end rhinoplasty as the rest of the revised Cabriolet range. It’s no light weight, either, tipping the scales at a portly 1,600kg.

As a car that’s bought more for style than anything else, you might think the A4’s powerplant doesn’t count for much. What’s more, we’re happy to concede that the latest generation of diesels are wonderfully efficient and produce impressive pulling power (oh, OK, they’re pretty clean these days, too). But we can’t help feeling that some of the feel-good factor goes up in smoke when an oil burner is dropped under the hood.

Diesels may drink less fuel than conventional petrol engines, but as far as Newswheel is concerned, the rise of petrol-electric hybrids can’t come too soon.