With the appalling British weather, it’s hard to believe we’re one of the biggest markets for convertible cars. And now, new research shows that despite our love of cabriolets, only a third of soft-top owners drive their motor with the wind in their hair.
Just under two thirds of Britain’s convertible owners (64%) either never or rarely take the roof down, according to the research by Audi, which has four convertibles in its model line-up.
Audi has managed to buy one of the five original Auto Union racing cars still in existence from the pre-war era.
Along with two others, the car had been taken by the Soviet Union in 1945 and shipped to Russia. In the 1980s, Paul Karassik, an American collector of part-Russian extraction, managed to track down two of the now-dismantled cars and shipped them back to America – piece by piece.
Car service and maintenance has long been considered a shady industry, with many car owners dubious of work being carried out. But times change, and high-end brand Audi are reassuring customers by pioneering a new camera which lets customers see and hear about necessary repair work and authorise it all via mobile phone or PC.
Now rolled out across all UK Audi centres, the service enables technicians carrying out workshop inspections to focus handheld ‘Audi Cams’ on specific problems, to deliver verbal diagnoses and to send the resulting film clips to customers’ home computers or smartphones before any work begins.
