The Audi S5 cabriolet has been around for a while—seven years, to be exact. And the coupe on which it’s based has been around for about nine years, a veritable epoch in automobile time. And yet—sigh—it’s still so very pretty. Walter de Silva’s droptop masterpiece still turns heads with the top down, of course, but with its new-for-2016 red convertible roof option, necks crane with the top up, too.
But as an S5 and not a mere A5, this car is about more than just looking good. The S5’s $14,200 premium over the A5 buys plenty of go-faster hardware. It starts in the engine bay with a 3.0-liter supercharged V-6 producing 333 horsepower and 325 lb-ft of torque. The blown six is mated to an ultra-quick, seven-speed dual-clutch automatic (the six-speed manual that can be had in the S5 coupe is not available here), and Quattro all-wheel drive is standard. Our test car was also equipped with the extra-cost adaptive dampers ($1000) and torque-vectoring rear differential ($1100).
With the high-revving, 450-hp RS5 no longer offered for 2016, this car is as quick as it gets for open-air Audis this year. It turns out that’s very quick indeed. The S5 cabrio’s zero-to-60-mph time of 4.9 seconds is 0.4 second behind the last S5 coupe we tested. No surprise there; the S5 coupe gets by without the cabrio’s nearly 400 pounds of folding-top hardware and additional structural bracing. At the same time, it was just six-tenths behind the most recent RS5 ragtop to pass through our hands, despite its huge 117-horsepower disadvantage. Credit the supercharged S5’s superior torque (325 lb-ft versus the RS5’s naturally aspirated V-8’s 317) and the fact that in the S5, unlike the RS5, you don’t need to rev the engine to the stratosphere to find grunt.
Enchanted in the Forest
A top-down morning blast along the seductive two-lane roads winding through Southern California’s Angeles National Forest and Antelope Valley helped make this car’s $74,250 as-tested price seem cheap. The 0.89 g of lateral grip is quite good for a convertible, if somewhat short of the 0.96 g achieved by the RS5 cabriolet, the latter benefiting from 275-millimeter-wide tires compared with the S5’s 255s. That said, the S5 represents Audi’s sweet spot for chassis communication, with sharp, perfectly weighted steering that is chattier than in either the A5 or the RS5 droptops, especially in Dynamic mode, when the adjustable dampers are at their stiffest. Thus set up, the S5 threads together banked S-curves without breaking a sweat, the torque-vectoring rear differential serving as the proverbial Hand of God cupping the car’s rear and scooting this convertible from apex to apex.
We would not have attempted such high-speed shenanigans if we had less confidence in the brakes, but the S5’s stoppers proved eminently capable of repeatedly slowing the 4341-pound droptop to sane speeds with no evidence of fade. The car’s impressive 158-foot stopping distance from 70 mph is only three feet behind that of the RS5 cabriolet and bests the last S5 coupe we tested by nine feet.
Sufficiently Special
However sporting and well balanced this convertible may be, at this price, it needs to be equally upscale. When you’re asking this kind of money for a car so long in the tooth, it had better feel special. And the S5 cabriolet does. Our test car’s Daytona Gray pearl-effect paint sparkled alluringly in the sun, and the red softtop was a pleasant surprise to everyone who saw it in place. The roof also is thickly padded, providing coupelike quietness at speed, and there are embedded LED reading lights in the rear seating area. Other boons are rear seats that can fit humans and their legs, a one-touch button that drops or raises all four windows simultaneously, a quick power-top lowering speed of 14 seconds (17 seconds to raise), and a folding wind blocker that makes even triple-digit cruising a calm affair.
This car came dressed up with Audi’s nifty aluminum-inlaid black wood veneer trim ($1100) and a $1400 Comfort package that brought neck-level heating and ventilated seats. Also part of the Comfort package, however, was some decidedly non-supple perforated leather that might be better used to sand furniture than upholster seats. We have grown accustomed to Audi’s MMI interface and quite like it, although it’s even better with the touchpad input found in other Audis. We also look forward to Audi’s slick “virtual cockpit” technology, which will make its way into the next-generation model.
In most respects, though, the 2016 S5 cabriolet is as swift and alluring a creature as ever, and it certainly doesn’t feel as old as it is. Once we’ve gotten some wheel time in the next-generation A5 and S5, which are expected to arrive next spring as 2018 models, we might change our tune. But until then, we can happily live with this.
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