Soft-Top, Hard Cash: 2013 Audi RS 5 Cabriolet Prices Announced
By Matt Schmitz
March 5, 2015
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If you’re a high-performance Audi faithful who’s just got to feel more wind through your hair than a lowered window can provide, your 2013 RS 5 Cabriolet awaits. Take note, though: For the price difference of that soft-top compared with the coupe, you could buy a used convertible 2003 Audi Audi A4.
Audi announced pricing this week for the new RS 5 Cabriolet, which will go on sale next month for a whopping $78,795, including an $895 destination fee. For comparison, that’s a full $11,000 more than its 2013 coupe counterpart and $17,000 more than the 2013 Porsche Boxter S. To be fair, the rear-wheel-drive Porsche won’t provide anywhere near the 450 horsepower or 317 pounds-feet of torque that the all-wheel-drive RS 5’s 4.2-liter V-8 — good for a zero-to-60 time of 4.9 seconds and a top speed of 174 mph — boasts.
Not expensive enough? A $6,000 stand-alone package offers ceramic brakes on the front rotors for superior braking performance.
But perhaps you won’t be thinking about money when you’re zipping along with the top down on a hot summer’s day enjoying the added comfort of the climate-controlled seats, or on a cold winter’s day keeping warm with the seat-mounted neck-level heating vents. Both of those features are optional, by the way, so they’ll cost you, too.
Still, with EPA-estimated fuel economy of 16/22 mpg city/highway at least you won’t have to pay a gas-guzzler tax, so there’s that.
Former Assistant Managing Editor-News Matt Schmitz is a veteran Chicago journalist indulging his curiosity for all things auto while helping to inform car shoppers.