Cabriolet

Do you remember that bookworm at college that always quietly did the work, never mixed and got top grades? Do you remember the day they went out and bought a bottle of Vodka and danced on the tables? Welcome to the Audi RS 5 Cabriolet. It's what happens when the quiet, efficient type suddenly lets their hair down.  Read More

For three decades, the annual GTI-Treffen held at the Austrian Lake Wörthersee’ has been one of the highlights of the European calendar for Volkswagen enthusiasts. It is increasingly a venue where Volkswagen communes with its closest fans and presents an array of concepts to assess market viability. This year it showed five new cars: the Golf GTI Cabriolet which had debuted at Geneva International Motor Show, plus four completely new concepts - the Polo R-WRC, Polo WRC Street, Golf GTI Black Dynamic and Golf GTI White Concept.  Read More

The lineage of the e-bugster electric vehicle goes all the way back to the noble aspirations of the peoples' car, and Volkswagen's very name, so it is very fitting that the E-Bugster looks likely to form the basis of a range of E-Bugster electric vehicles. Appropriately being shown in the the only market that has embraced electric mobility on any scale, we first saw the E-Bugster as a coupé at Detroit in January, but this time in Beijing, the hard-top has been removed, previewing a future Beetle Cabriolet  Read More

The new Golf GTI Cabriolet will be shown next week at the Geneva Motor Show. It uses the same 154 kW 2.0-litre turbocharged four as the GTI hatchback, mated to a six-speed manual or six-speed dual-clutch DSG gearbox, enabling a 0-100 km/h (62 mph) time of 7.3 seconds (versus 6.9 seconds for the hatch), and a top speed of 237 km/h (147 mph).  Read More

Major automakers come up with pretty cool concepts on their own, but for really "wow-worthy" designs, sometimes you need to pay attention to what the other firms are doing. Take the MILA Coupic concept from Austrian engineering firm Magna Steyr. This innovative concept gives you the hauling capacity of a pickup truck, the family moving comfort of an SUV and the stylish driving enjoyment of a convertible - all from the same driver's seat.  Read More

Looking to soup-up your supercar? The Maserati-dedicated arm of tuning specialists NOVITEC, a company best known for its Ferrari performance enhancements has turned its attention to the open-top Maserati GranCabrio. The result is a supercharged engine that puts out 590 hp / 434 kW, peak torque of 572 Nm and a top speed of 301 km/h (187 mph). Hold on to your hat!  Read More

While retractable hardtops have the edge on their softtop siblings by virtue of reduced road and wind noise, improved insulation and aerodynamics, they lack the typical cabriolet look. EDAG is set to show a completely new type of roof system at the Geneva Motor Show which combines the advantages of a soft top and a retractable hardtop.  Read More

This week in Detroit at the North American International Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz premiered the latest addition to its popular E-Class family - the 2011MY E-Class Cabriolet. The soft-top convertible is the first car to feature Mercedes’ new AIRCAP draught-stop, an air-deflection system that greatly reduces interior wind turbulence for all four passengers, front and back. Mercedes also announced the upcoming release of the much-anticipated SLS AMG. This gull-winged beauty is a stylistic throwback to the classic 1950’s 300SL, but with the technology of today.  Read More

It may be nearly half a century old, but this rare Ferrari 400 Superamerica Cabriolet Pininfarina is appreciating quite nicely with age. So well that when it goes under the hammer in Monaco in May, keen judges are expecting the 1962 supercar could fetch in excess of US$5 million. With CES top of mind right now, one wonders how many products on the showroom floor this year will appreciate in value over the next 50 years.  Read More