Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet Preview
It’s been a while since those hoards of trendy Golf Cabriolets graced the more popular beachside car parks and inner city cafes with their black Webasto soft tops. I recall they were a rather rudimentary contraption (that's the roof), but still generations ahead of the MG style systems, which required the user to be well and truly drenched before they finally managed to get the roof up and secured.
That didn’t seem to matter though when it came to sales of the drophead Golf. Between 1979 and 2002 Volkswagen sold over 680,000 of them; such was the level of brand cachet and general popularity the model enjoyed for so long in the global market.
It’s difficult to understand why Volkswagen ever stopped producing such an iconic model other than for times had changed and there were perhaps other more worthwhile priorities that the company pursued during this period.
We’ve only had a brief look at the car today with the proper test drive program in the all-new Golf Cabriolet kicking off early tomorrow morning. That said it’s a much cleaner design that I expected with none of those obtrusive rollover bars to upset the smooth profile of the car. We’re told that the soft-top mechanism is a masterpiece in design and simplicity, and will raise or lower in just nine seconds flat at speeds up to 30km/h.
The interior looks like any other Golf with plenty of grey inside the cockpit along with functional switchgear and beautifully bolstered seats.
Pricing and choice of engines will be made available to the media tomorrow, but clearly, the new Golf Cabriolet will need to come in well under its EOS cousin with its folding metal hardtop and an entry price of $49,990. We’re thinking under $40K would be a nice start.
As for engines, there will need to be at least one or two petrol powerplants, together with diesel options to satisfy what we believe will be a hungry market in Australia.
CarAdvice will provide a full review of the Golf Cabriolet shortly.
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