VW Eos 2.0T (2006) CAR review

A drop top VW - how desirable. I take it the people's convertible is back?

Yes and no. True, the Eos is from the people's car maker and it effectively replaces the old Golf cabriolet. But that was a no frills soft top, so archaic it needed a big basket handle over the passenger compartment, to boost rigidity and hold up the roof. This VW is so much more advanced, it feels like the Starship Enterprise in comparison. Its folding steel roof is the most fearsomely complex on sale, one which makes a Rubik's Cube look as simple as a two-year-old's wooden puzzle. That technology doesn't come cheap. The Eos costs from £19,370 – some £2375 more than a Vauxhall Astra TwinTop. Its size, like its price, is midway between the Golf and Passat, and the Eos shares components from both.

Tell me more about that roof...

Naturally it's a folding tin top; the French have made them de rigeur in the mainstream cabrkio segment. But VW is keen to offer a bit more - hence the tinted and laminated glass panels, the integrated electric sunroof, adjustable sunshade and front and rear wind deflectors. Split into five pieces, the roof requires the co-operation of all sorts of hydraulics, levers and flaps and 25secs to take it up or down (to see the Eos in action go to www.volkswagen.co.uk/new_cars/eos).