 2014 Audi RS 5 Cabriolet. Click image to enlarge |
Review and photos by Jonathan Yarkony
Klagenfurt, Austria – For 2014, Audi decided to add a bit of flair to their lineup by chopping the top off the RS 5, offering sun lovers yet another high-horsepower option in their lineup, fitting nicely between the TTS Roadster, S5 Cabriolet and the R8 Spyder. We were invited to test this new convertible in Austria. The Alps part of Austria. The winding mountain passes part of Austria. And a bit of Italy, too.
Jealous yet? I know that for almost every second I was not in the driver’s seat, I was jealous of my colleague and co-driver at the wheel.
Of course, we were there purely in the interests of automotive evaluation, not as some sort of fantasy fulfillment bucket-list adventure (of course not), and specifically evaluation of the RS 5 Cabrio. The Audi Alpen Tour – “Land of Quattro”, they like to call it – was actually organized in order to introduce the Europe-only RS Q3, but they also arranged for the assembled international media to sample a variety of RS products – you know, the ones with the big engines and preternatural handling – and one classic Audi.
Of greatest interest to us was the RS 5 Cabriolet as it was only recently launched in the Canadian market, and is a vehicle we’d yet to cover. And what better place to test a sports car than the scenic and scintillating passes of the Alps in Austria and Italy.
    2014 Audi RS 5 Cabriolet. Click image to enlarge |
We started our journey out of the Interalpen-Hotel Tyrol, somewhere near Innsbruck (even though the route map was on the car, I had barely a clue where we were), and immediately after leaving the hotel we were snaking through switchbacks and marveling at the incredible levels of grip offered by the RS 5. At the heart of almost every Audi product is Quattro all-wheel drive, and in RS products with the active Sport differential, essentially a psychic differential between the rear wheels, it is downright transcendental. The actual mechanical bits include a crown gear centre differential encased in the transmission housing, and the rear differential that is able to direct torque to either side in order to compensate for differences in wheel rotation when cornering.
  2014 Audi RS 5 Cabriolet. Click image to enlarge |
There are quite a few cars that make that claim, but few execute it so well. Also, in many products claiming torque vectoring, it is simply the effect of braking one wheel that causes the torque to follow the path of least resistance to the unbraked wheel, balancing those cornering forces. With Audi’s sport differential, power is actively sent through the differential to the outside cornering wheel based on sensor input, preempting the wasted torque being braked back to the outside wheel.
When ramping up speed between switchbacks, it sure is nice to have perfect power distribution. On the other side of the pass, the downhill side, it sure is nice to have brakes. Big, honking, fade-free carbon ceramic brakes. Even being the last group of journalists to flog these cars (they travelled from Austria through Switzerland and down to Monaco and all the way back, finding every challenging mountain pass along the way, so there was no shortage of wear on these cars), these brakes were unflappable, pronouncedly sharp in their initial bite, but well calibrated to modulate through turns of any degree. However, aside from lowering weight and increasing service intervals because of increased wear resistance, these are more likely to be jarring and too severe for ordinary daily use. Even if you hit up the occasional track day (in which case you should get the Coupe, but that’s another story), the standard binders should serve all but the most extreme track-day applications.
