Audi TTS Roadster test drive since 2008.

We go to Gogol, we walk with a trump card

The azure shore, Nice, Monaco, Monte Carlo ... rich and beautiful edges to indecent. Probably the most convertible edges in the world. Even in the non -season, the concentration of convertibles per unit area here is close to rich. So they scurry back and forth. What did you think about in Audi, arranging presentation pokatushki on the new TT Roadster? Who can be surprised here by the Rodster? Stop. This is the wrong statement of the question. It is there that you need to ride, where the most fat potential client is found. Roadster TT on the Lazurnaya is his own among his own.
Show yourself. The streets and especially along the embankments on the Cote d'Azur go slowly. Not because it is dangerous to rush (and sometimes contagious: after driving along the Nice embankment, say, on Ferrari Enzo, you can pick up a pig), it is simply customary not to drive, but to walk. Show yourself in your gorgeous square and look at your own kind. A kind of car promenade.
 
So we are walking the new TT Roadster. And so that we would pay more attention to us and more, from time to time we indulge with a soft roof. We put it up, we will lay it out ... Everything is done by one button between the seats, you can manually be replaced here. (I note that the budget version of TT Roadster is regularly equipped with a manual control with a lever, and automatic can be put optionally, in Europe it costs 1015. But that is not our case. For a test drive for azure machine, they are charged in full. For the ruble too ...) the button, however, is necessary all the time, while the roof moves/clicks, hold the press, but the finger does not have time: the whole process in one direction takes some 12 seconds-such nimble roofs have not met before me before . I even want it to be slower, those girls probably did not manage to track the process ...
 
This roof not only does not require manual labor, but also stops to work with it. We are going in a general stream with an officially permitted speed of 50 km/h and calmly open for envious look and closing from the malicious-vast ones-this is exactly the speed to which you can play with the roof.
We have achieved our own: they pay attention to us. And on the roof, and on the new class itself. Both on the Nice embankment, and the famous casino in Monte Carlo, and the equally famous oceanographic museum of Coustea. Everyone, of course, understands that we are showing off, but they come to these lands. There is the daddy who waves a tennis racket on the upper deck of the yacht, aiming the ball into the illuminator of the cutting (imagine this yacht?), Does he not show off? He is a yacht, we are a relatives. We are here among our own. (And by the way, he never got into the porthole while we stood on the embankment. One is in our favor.)
Okay, they showed themselves and enough. We won’t call in the casino, otherwise it will be nonpathos in such a family and with empty pockets. It would be necessary to rush into the mountains, twist through serpentines, and to repay the autobahn.
A soft fabric roof with built-in large rear window on the new Audi TT Roadster is offered in two color versions-black and dark gray. Folding the Z-shaped, it is cleaned in a shallow compartment between the body partition and the trunk lid. The front section of the roof when folding lies on top, being a flush with the body; With such a scheme, the need to cover it with a separate lid. The automatic roof, unlike a manual roof, has a special internal casing that hides the levers and thrust of the folding mechanism.
 
... and get a baseball cap. We go to the autobahn. We accelerate well. And then it becomes uncomfortable in an open car. In the summer, probably, a mining breeze would be very pleasant, but now, alas, not summer, and the breeze is not caresses, and chopping our tops. We cut warm blowing, raise (again by the button) a special aerodynamic screen behind the seats-it seems to be a little better, but still freezing. We put on the baseball caps. Mine almost tears off the wind - a branded cap, from Audi, is a pity to lose, so I throw it into, as I believed, a glove compartment between the backs of the seats. (This was a mistake. The mess turned out to be ... a ski base - of course, with access to the trunk. Yes, imagine that two pairs of skis up to 190 cm long can be transported to TT Roadster, and the cover is attached for them. True, they will be sticking into the salon, hanging over the central tunnel and depicting, well, a very high armrest-but the fact itself! Compact sports relatives and skis ... By the way, the baseball cap later fished out and returned me to the company. Vielen Dank!) Partly from the cold wind The installation of the seats in the lowest position also saves, but then only the passenger is convenient, because he does not need to look at the road ... In general, we determine the method of trial and error that we determine that without a roof, it is comfortable to ride at speeds up to a hundred. It is pleasant, by the way, the fact that even the loud noise of the wind does not interfere with listening to music at all - the focus of the sound of the speakers on the ears of the audience is magnificent; The sound does not blow off.
 
Well, all, stuck. Raise the roof (naturally, reducing the speed to the laid fifty), thaw. How good and comfortable, warm and quiet in a closed salon. There is already speed, wind, cold and rustle of tires do not play a role - we are in the house. Above our heads, such a solid sandwich, in the filling of which there are noise and thermal insulation layers- we theoretically knew this, but now we feel in practice. Own ears and tops.
 
Drive in high. You read and probably think: what is it on the roof alone, have a focused? And where is the technique, where is the drive? I have excuses. Firstly, the roof in this case is an element that determines both the type and the ideology of the car. She is archived here. Secondly, about technology and drive have already been in sufficient detail. We rolled the TT coupe and on a presentation test drive in the Alps (No. 8, 2006), and on the steam room, with Porsche Cayman S, a test drive in Moscow (No. 11, 2006). The coupe and the class technique are extremely close to each other. The differences are that the Roadster is harder, since the open body requires a powerful additional amplification, it has aerodynamics and acceleration worse (but only a little bit, for tenths), the trunk is smaller (the roof requires a place), two, and not two+two, two, and not two+two ... And in my opinion, they are completely indistinguishable by the drive. Compact, strong, tight, fast, stylish car. In this and on the Cote d'Azur, it is not a shame to appear.

Text Sergey Sorokin photo Audi AG

Audi TT Roadster
 
Gasoline 2.0 tfsi gasoline 3.2 v6
Working volume (cubic meter) 1984 3189
Power (L.S. at rpm) 200 at 5100-6000 250 at 6300
Moment (Nm at rpm) 280 at 1800-5000 320 at 2500-3000
The front drive is full
Gearbox 6-speed mechanical (6-speed s-Tronic*)
Length/width/height (mm) 4178/1842/1358
Equipped mass (kg) 1295 (1315*) 1470 (1490*)
Maximum speed (km/h) 237 250
Acceleration to 100 km/h (c) 6.7 (6.5*) 6.1 (5.9*)
Fuel consumption, average
(l/100 km) 7.8 10.4 (9.5*)
Price in Moscow $ 61 765 $ 74 436
(*)-data for cars with S-Tronic.

 
   
 

Source: "Autopilot"