Volkswagen Releases New Golf Cabriolet Pictures

In the United States, the Golf has never been Volkswagen's largest seller. Here, we prefer vehicles of the sedan variety over their hatchback counterparts. Proof? Last month, VW sold 16,955 Jettas.

The Golf, including Rabbit, GTI and R32 variants rings in at a decidedly lower 3,382 units. in Europe, the case is much different. The Golf is the brand's most important model. As such, VW has announced a redesigned Golf Cabriolet variant.

The original model launched in 1979, and while it's grown quite a lot in size, power and feature since then, it still remains remarkably true to form. The Golf Cabriolet's is a soft top, but power operated, taking 9.5 seconds to retract. It can be operated safely at speeds up to 18 mph.

The car has been sold here before, but given slow Golf sales, it won't be making over to our shores. For now, we will just get the (likely considerably more expensive) Eos retractable hardtop.

Six (!) engines are available that include turbocharged or naturally-aspirated direct-injected gasoline and diesel options.

Advantages over the Eos for buyers in Europe include more usable trunk space (retractable hardtops eat up a lot) and, likely, a much cheaper price. The two are based on the same platform but the Eos is a bit larger overall. The good thing is that the new Golf Cabrio is a whole lot more refined than the original that debuted in 1979.

Gone are the days of leaky convertibles and retractable hardtops….you can take Karcher pressure washers to them and they should remain watertight. Pressure washers and convertibles usually don't mix. VW has dropped a whole gallery of the new car and you can check some of the new images out in our gallery below. Sales of the car have already begun in Germany.