From a very young age, I heard my father’s story of how he had bought an Audi back in the 70s, only to have the car go kaput a hundred metres down the road from the dealership. The story always stuck with me and I’d always had a less than favourable impression of Audi. Ever since that incident, ‘Buy a Mercedes’ seemed to be my father’s only advice when asked about luxury cars.

Believe it or not, the first Audi I ever drove was the superb S8 for evo 001 just over two years ago. I came out shocked at the fact that it actually handles far better than an S-Class Mercedes! It was a revelation. Add to that the fact that practically everything else about the car was near perfect, and I had quite some automotive soul-searching to do.

With all this in the back of my head, I jumped at the opportunity to go to Monaco in early March to test-drive the drop-top version of what has been, quite possibly, one of the most impressive coupés I’ve driven all year – the S5.

First, the rather unpleasant news: we still don’t know whether the S5 cabrio will make it to the Middle East market and we may have to wait some time to find out. Surprisingly, the folks at Ingolstadt have plopped a new 3-litre V6 unit in place of the coupé’s V8 which will have to be “approved” for the Middle East just as the S5 coupé’s V8 had to be.

While the horsepower isn’t down that much at 328bhp, you have to take into account the cabrio’s added heft, which at 1,875kg is not insignificant. Another  thing that left me puzzled was why Audi haven’t gone down the BMW route and used a folding hardtop in place of the soft-top roof. I found out it was because of all the extra space the hardtop takes up. Oh well, let’s see how it drives.

With the technical briefing over I was on my way up to the mountain passes which border France and the tiny principality that is Monaco. My first impression of the car is that it feels nearly identical to the S5 coupé; wonderfully compliant and comfy at low speed, and packing a nice punch and great handling once the driving gets a bit more spirited. The steering which felt a bit light and uncommunicative at first felt great afterwards, stiffening up quite nicely at speed and transmitting just enough feedback to keep me entertained and informed. Although a bit numb at the limit it remains communicative yet not quite as telepathic as a Porsche.

What’s remarkable though, is that the S5 really feels a lot lighter than it is whether you’re accelerating, braking or taking a tight turn, it exceeded my expectation every time, delivering near coupé-like handling. The rear end is very predictable and never lets loose unless you’re trying very hard, and the superbly calibrated suspension keeps both ends in perfect sync with one another despite the non-stop heavy accelerating, braking and turning that I was subjecting the car to. This is also impressive keeping in mind the extra heft, lower horsepower, and the less than brawny V6 in place of the Coupe’s V8. The V6 does respond wonderfully to your right foot’s input and works in nearly perfect unison with the transmission.

In sport mode, the automatic transmission had no problem picking the right gear in most situations. One thing I disliked was the S-Tronic transmission. Sure, it’s a great piece of technology, and very convenient for those of us that aren’t inclined to constantly row through the gears with a manual. Problem is, I’ve driven the S5 Coupe with a manual transmission, and can tell you hands down that it suits this cars performance and personality far more than the S-Tronic. I would imagine this would be even more true in the case of the cabrio since it’s slightly weaker V6 would probably be better off mated to a proper manual. I opted to keep the transmission in Automatic mode rather than fiddle with the paddle shifters and continued merrily along my way.

Cruising along in the S5 I decided to take a longer route, on the coastal road all the way to Nice and back through St Jean, Villefranche and finally Monaco, allowing me to experience something a bit more similar to what I’m used to in Dubai - traffic. If you have to deal with it on your daily commute, I can officially proclaim to you that this is probably one of the best compromises out there, being equally pleasant a car to drive in stop and go traffic as it is at speed. The interior of the Audi is just sublime and in my opinion far better than the rather stolid interiors from BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

All in all, I’d have quite a hard time choosing between this and a 335 cabrio. The Beemer’s steering feedback may be a bit better, but not quite as well-rounded as the Audi. And the verdict? The new S5 cabrio is yet another winning model in Audi’s all-out assault on its competitors.