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Some things just shouldn’t work, but do. Snoek and jam, leather and lace, symphonies and rock music, you get the idea. There are similarly strange combinations in the world of cars which, in theory, should be ghastly. We’ve just spent a week with one of them and it’s called an Audi S3 Cabriolet.
Did you know that Audi makes more than 30 different cars? Quite a few of them are bigger or topless versions of existing models but if you’re in the market for, say, a four-door sedan, you can pick between six basic configurations, excluding sporty iterations like the S3 sedan I tested last week.
Do you remember Gerhard Schröder? The ex-Chancellor of Germany may be best known for his various policies and four wives but to me he’ll always be the guy who swapped the obligatory black Merc for an Audi A8. My family was equally impressed and to this day we still refer to any A8 as a “Schröder Auto”.
So you live out in the sticks but the roads never deteriorate enough to warrant a wonky 4×4. Perhaps you already have such a vehicle and long for a decent station wagon. Maybe the one you fancy is a butch estate which can also deal with a nasty middelmannetjie. This car could be Audi’s new A4 Allroad.
Good news. If you’re in the market for a premium hatchback, your extremely tasty choices have just been supplemented with a rejuvenated version of an old favourite – the Audi A3 Sportback. Ingolstadt’s regular 3-door A3 arrived late last year, the Sportback 5-door version took a little longer to gestate.
I’m not a huge fan of oversized, pricey SUVs. I find them a bit pointless really. And initially, I wasn’t particularly taken with the Audi Q5 either. My first impressions were very negative, I disliked its bulbous bonnet, I felt too far removed from the whole driving experience with its clever driver assist technology and I really couldn’t see the point of its existence – halfway between a Q3 (which is quite big enough for the school run in my opinion) and a Q7 (which is somehow just magnificent).
Volkswagen van Suid-Afrika het so-pas sy nuwe Amarok dubbelkajuit, met ‘n nuwe 8-gang outomatiese ratkas, in die Namibwoestyn aan motorjoernaliste bekendgestel. Dit was letterlik en figuurlik ‘n WARM geleentheid met temperature wat by 55 grade Celsius gaan draai het; verder is die nuwe Volkswagen bakkie, met sy outomatiese ratkas en permanente vierwielaandrywing,‘n warm opponent in hierdie marksegment waar hy sommige van sy mededingers ore gaan aansit.
I’ve bought quite a few cars over the years and my shortlists usually included some or other derivative of a car which I believe to be a sensible and beautifully engineered hatchback. It’s never been the most affordable and I’m yet to own one so my admiration of the Audi A3 lives on.