A4 Cab

[Jon Linkov]

I spent about 5 days driving one around at the Audi Club nationals. Audi
left a press car for people to look at and ride in, and I also used it for
my transportation (the UrQ was home with non-functioning blower motors that
left the windshield fogged in the rain).

My impressions are that it's a great car. I love the multitronic as a
transmission, and really think it's actually more impressive than SMG (which
is really bizarre the first time one drives it -- seems I-drive isn't the
ONLY part of a WMB that you need to read directions to use!).

Of course, the same current A4 deficiencies are in the Cab version: the
parking brake handle hits the center armrest in any engagement other than
one click, the "buttresses" on either side of the stereo/climate control are
hard plastic that rub/hurt the driver's right knee (unlike the past A4 with
smaller arches), and I'm not a fan of the grey lower-body cladding.

WHEN they bring quattro and WHEN they bring us a 6-speed quattro, I'll be
extremely happy. Of course, $42k base is a lot of dough for a car for me,
especially an A4....but a used 6-speed quattro will be nice in 5 years!

Jon

> -----Original Message-----
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 12:39:04 -0400
> To: quattro at audifans.com
> From: Brett Dikeman <brett at cloud9.net>
> Subject: Boston Globe review, A4 cab
>
> http://www.boston.com/cars/reviews/2003/audi_a4_cabriolet.shtml
>
> Royal Ford has always been rather enamored with...well...anything
> that gets handed to him, with a few exceptions here and there...but
> he has never(in recent memory) not had anything except glowing
> reviews for Audis.