Volkswagen T-Roc Cabriolet IS going in to production

As VW continue its model offensive, the latest project to be confirmed as on its way to production is the VW T-Roc Cabriolet, a drop-top take on VW’s small SUV.

The Volkswagen T-Roc is the smaller Crossover / SUV VW hope will show the Nissan Qashqai a thing or two, and it’s a decent enough crossover, although without any real character to grab hearts as well as minds.

But VW think they’ve come up with a plan to steal an edge on other makers of compactish SUVs – they’re going to chop the top off the T-Roc to make a VW T-Roc Cabriolet.

The idea of delivering a convertible SUV has so far been limited to Nissan’s efforts with the Murano SUV Cabriolet (which actually looked better – but not great – in the flesh) and the Range Rover Evoque Convertible, which hurts your eyes and sensibilities whenever you see it.

So you do have to ask how big the potential market is for a T-Roc Cabriolet, with just tow examples ver making it to market, but VW seem convinced enough it exists to throw £70 million at the project to deliver the Cabriolet to the market by 2020.

Herbert Diess, VW CEO, said:

Volkswagen is evolving into an SUV brand. The T-Roc is already setting new standards in the compact SUV segment. With the cabriolet based on the T-Roc, we will be adding a highly emotional model to the range.

Her Diess seems chuffed with the idea of a T-Roc Cabriolet. Let’s hope VW buyers are too.