Yahoo Autos Volkswagen Hates Fun, Is Killing Off The T-Roc Convertible SUV
I’m not really a fan of convertibles. I don’t like the wind messing up my hair, the sun burning my face, outside smells stinking up my cabin, and annoying noises drowning out my music. I currently own an R129 SL that I’ve never taken the hardtop off of, and I rarely even drive with the windows down. But what I irrationally love are convertible SUVs. I’m not talking about Wranglers and Broncos — I mean things like the Range Rover Evoque Convertible and Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet.
Sadly, Volkswagen has announced that it hates fun, by which I mean it will be discontinuing the T-Roc Cabriolet after the current generation of the compact crossover runs its course. That’s a damn shame, as the droptop T-Roc is the only crossover convertible you can currently buy worldwide, let alone in Europe where the T-Roc is sold.
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The current T-Roc will be replaced next year by a new model using the MBQ Evo platform that also underpins the Golf’s upcoming face-lift, as well as the new Passat and Tiguan.
The new T-Roc will be VW’s final combustion-engine variant, VW brand’s development boss Kai Grunitz told journalists on the sidelines of the 2024 CES tech event in Las Vegas.
Grunitz added that “there is only a really small customer group for cabrios” as reasoning for the T-Roc convertible being discontinued. Despite that, last year the T-Roc cabrio was the second best-selling convertible in Europe after the Mini droptop, selling 11,693 units in 2023, and at one point it even made up more than a quarter of all T-Rocs sold. (In 2023 the T-Roc was the third best-selling car in Europe in general, with 191,015 cars registered.) It’s not a bad value, either. In Germany the T-Roc convertible is only a few thousand Euro more expensive than the equivalent regular T-Roc, and it’s priced between the top trims of the Mini Cooper and Cooper S convertibles.
