Motoring | 10 January 2009

Eos is a word I struggled with, presuming it to derive from the Greek prefix, eo-, meaning dawn or beginning, particularly in relation to plant or animal life. Then I discovered Eos was goddess of the dawn, beloved by (rather too) many Titans, though it could also refer to a bankrupt airline or the European Orthodontic Society. None of these is an obvious name for a car, but it works. Its Greek origins suggest sunlight, appropriately for a convertible, there’s the ever-helpful misreading for Eros, it’s easy, memorable and effortlessly crosses linguistic boundaries.

In fact, the VW Eos is technically not a convertible, as the company points out. They call its five-piece steel and glass roof a CSC, because it’s a hard-top coupé with a sliding glass sunroof and a fully convertible metal roof. Press a button and the top of the car folds away into the boot and rear sides in 25 seconds without compromising rear passenger space. You can’t do it on the move but you can do it in pretty well any garage you can stand up in and it still leaves you with 205 litres of the total 380 litres of luggage space. If you don’t want to be completely roofless there’s the unusually large sunroof, but when you do you’ll have an open-top car that for looks trumps its Peugeot, Volvo, Ford and Renault competition. When Honest John, the Daily Telegraph’s eponymous motoring agony aunt, tested this car he was approached by a retired couple looking to replace their Peugeot 306 cabrio; he took them back to the dealership and they bought one.

It looks so good partly because it was designed as an open-top rather than an adapted saloon, which also endows greater structural rigidity and superior handling.