A soft spot for Audi’s new RS4 soft top

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It seems that Pacific Coast Highway, like Southern California in general, was made especially for soft-top cars. One of the most powerful newcomers is the Audi RS4 Cabriolet. It has the same 420-horsepower, 4.2-liter V-8 engine as in the award-strewn R8 supercar, zips to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds, goes like hell, but sounds like heaven in an exhaust pipe.

It also has all-wheel drive, a high-quality cloth top that dips into the body in 25 seconds, a slick six-speed manual transmission and a sticker price of $85,525, once gas guzzler tax and destination fees have been added. Yeah, ouch.

That said, the car will be made in limited numbers (300 per model year), and it comes with a lot of standard equipment that would normally be found on a list of expensive options, such as satellite navigation, fetching aluminum alloy wheels and a top-end Bose audio system.

And for a four-seater soft-top, there isn’t much out there that can touch it, aesthetically or kinetically.

-- Colin Ryan