FACTFILE

THE girls love it. My wife does, our neighbour does and so do several others up the street.

They’ve all been drooling over this Volkswagen T-Roc cabriolet. I think the colour helps: a very tasteful shade that VW calls Ivy Green.

Well there you go, much against my preconceptions this car does have a place in the world.

Perhaps someone at Volkswagen is a huge admirer of the Range Rover Evoque convertible which, unless I’m missing something, is the world’s only other convertible crossover.

I’m no great fan of that car, either. It just goes to show how dominant the crossover or SUV is in today’s car market. Virtually every car firm is building one.

Even Ferrari developing a 4x4.

In the past, if VW wanted to give us a wind-in-the-hair experience it cut the top off a Golf. Hey, the Golf Cabriolet was a symbol of Eighties success, wasn’t it?

Like the Golf con- vertible, this T-Roc is built by long-term VW collaborators and coachbuilders Karmann.

The car is longer than the regular T-Roc and as you can see a couple of the doors have been replaced in favour of two truly huge, heavy front ones.

It’s claimed that this car is a four seater, which it is as long as the adults in the back are below average height.

You do get two Isofix fittings so child seats can safely be fitted in the back.

With the roof in place you lose some rear headroom over the normal T-Roc. But the boot holds 284 litres of luggage whether the roof is up or down.

If you ignore the more expensive Evoque, the T-Roc’s nearest rivals are the Audi A3 and BMW 2 Series cabriolets. Against these two, the VW stacks up well as the others are both compromised on rear space, can’t comfortably accommodate tall and lanky passengers and neither has a particularly large boot.

Not surprisingly, and reassuringly for that matter, serious is strengthening has taken place. The A-pillars have been made stronger and there’s a pop-up roll bar in case you turn it over.

These features have sent the T-Roc’s weight northwards, with like-for-like versions of the cabriolet weighing around 190kg more than the conventional T-Roc, which in the case of our test car puts it on the scales at 1,540kg.

Interestingly, that’s 145kg heavier than an Audi A3 cabriolet with the same engine and gearbox.

Talking of engines, only two are offered – a 1.0-litre three cylinder with

113bhp and a 1.5-litre with 148bhp that features cylinder deactivation.

There are also only two trim levels: Design and R-Line.

The range starts at £27,410 for the 1.0 Design but by the time you’ve moved up to our car’s R-Line trim and 1.5-litre engine we’re up to

£33,135.

That’s not so bad until you start adding options which in our car add a further

£7,000 to the price. What our car doesn’t have is some of the brighter colour options available for the inside trim.

Ours has boring grey detailing which with the rest of the black leather, cloth and plastic makes the interior look dull.

Blue or yellow trim would lift it.

You do not buy a crossover if you want a sporty driving experience and you certainly don’t buy a crossover cabriolet if it weighs as much as this one.

A high centre of gravity make this car feel ponderous and blunt, but that doesn’t matter a jot because I doubt its target customer will care at all.

And you can put my wife and our neighbours in that camp.

More importantly, the T-Roc is comfortable at low speeds around town and feels secure and surefooted on country roads.

The T-Roc cabriolet is one of the most “Marmite” cars I’ve ever tested.

I would hate to own it but I know people who love this car… and, worryingly, I’m married to one

of them.