Convertibles, as girly and poseur as they may be, are fun, a lot of fun. They may not be big here in Boleh-land due to our mad weather but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any. Infact Volkswagen Group Malaysia (VGM) has brought down the Eos, one of the smoothest, coolest and dare I say, cutest convertibles to ever carry the VW badge. So with such a car on our shores, there’s no way we could just sit around and admire it from afar, we had to get our hands on it even if only for a while. After all the emails and signing disclaimers, VW loaned one to us for the weekend.
I don’t think the car will ever spend as much time with its top down than when we had it, the only time when the top was up was when it started to pour or get too hot and it was back down again as soon as the weather permitted. The Eos got us a lot of attention from admirers and haters alike. In fact, the first day we had it, several ‘Rempits’ let their feeling be known, and their middle fingers suggested contempt and jealousy for the fun we were having, but no worries, we just blasted past them, top down, music blaring, without a care for the world.
The Eos is one of those coupe’s that you can use on a daily basis, that is if you have someone to do your groceries for you, pick up your kids or friends for you, and basically everything else you would do on a normal day. That’s because the car is rather small with hardly any space to keep your shopping or your kids bags and it can only fit three regular sized adults with one of them sitting diagonally in the back, or four adults if the front two are able to deal with the dash and steering wheel in their face but that’s usually the case with most coupes and convertibles except for the yacht like coupe’s from Bentley and Rolls Royce of course.
Inside it’s as VW as a VW can be with carry over items from other models in the VW range, something that I very much loathe because it seems that the only thing that differentiates VW cars is the exterior and maybe a few other things but the basic idea inside remains the same. The seats are wrapped in fine Napa leather and are as great to look at as they are to sit in. Our silver or as VW puts it, ‘Silver Essence’ coloured test car featured a deep red leather interior and it brilliantly complemented the silver exterior, a weird but great colour combination.
Most convertible’s suffer from lack of space to keep luggage and the Eos is no different. Its boot is just amazingly small, it’s worse when the top is down as the roof takes up 46% of the already tiny booth, leaving enough space for your pen and file and maybe, just maybe, a piece of paper. Sure I’m pushing it, the boot is not that small, it’s actually quite big at 380 liters but that’s only when the roof is in place, otherwise it’s filled with the 470 components needed for the five piece convertible top, this makes the boot unpractical to use normally.
If you haven’t already noticed, the Eos is a very feminine looking car, if car’s had a gender, the Eos would be female. It’s subtle lines flow upwards towards the boot creating a high shoulder line in the process, this gives a sense of security as you’re seated deep inside the car and have the door up to your ear line. Sure the seats may be adjustable for height, but sitting deeper inside also gives you a sense of control over the car, something that was important as we headed up Genting Highlands at 12am with the top down, shivering our b***s off.
Going up Gentings gave us a chance to get to know the car more intimately. The various bends, sweepers, hairpins provided the ideal conditions to see how the Eos would behave in such situations. Though it took everything in its stride, it did have its hiccups. It handles well, not GTI well but well enough to driven around bends at sane speeds. Its a nose-heavy car and you often find yourself understeering in bends at casual speeds and it doesn’t help that power is delivered to the front wheels, it forces you to ease off the throttle to reel everything back in, and once everything is settled and you get back on the pedal, you have to wait for the car to get back into its stride so the up-hill climb doesn’t feel like you’re lugging timber.
The 200hp 2-liter TFSI is the same as the unit found in the Golf GTI and though slightly detuned, it doesn’t feel like it. On a flat road, the Eos pulls away effortlessly and completes the century sprint in about 7.5 seconds but going up mountainous roads, the engine seems to loose much of its power. We had a regular Golf GTI as a basis for comparison and the GTI pulled away quite easily much to our suprise, but then again, the Eos is a car to take a slow drive in, so we figured that’s what we’d do and continued our stroll uphill, till it started to drizzle.
The coupe-convertible-sun (CCS) roof of the Eos is a wondrous work of engineering, its glass rear window is a first of its kind and is part of the five piece folding roof that kept us dry that night. A simple push/pull lever located at the center does the work of retracting or replacing the roof and the entire process takes 25-seconds. That’s all good, though there are cars that do that much faster like the Porsche Boxster that does it in 12 but none do it in so much style and elegance, it seriously looks as if the entire car is about to transform to reveal itself as another being, but the process stops once the roof is stowed and you’re reminded that Transformers is nothing but a movie.
It’s a pity though that for safety reasons, the electro-hydraulic mechanism that controls the roof will not operate if the car is moving. That means you have to pull over and summon the roof back up at the first sign of rain and with Malaysian rain having a nasty habit of sneaking up on you and letting it rip, 25-seconds could just be a very long, wet wait.
All in all, the Eos is a great car. A lot of fun, and exactly what you need for those long drives in great weather and I believe all of us here at ZTH can testify to that as we made our way to Putrajaya after Genting to catch the morning sun for a spot of photography. It’s seriously comfortable and is the perfect gift for your wife, daughter, mistress or girlfriend. If you’re a guy and you’re impressed with the car but like me, feel its too feminine, not to worry, there are plenty of tuners that are more than willing to inject a dose of testosterone for you and you’ll be suprised at how good it looks after they’ve had their way with it, just do a google search on it and see for yourself.
At RM250,000 (without insurance), the Eos is a tad-bit steep but when it comes to a convertibles in Malaysia it’s not the value for money you’re looking for, it’s how good it looks for the money and the Eos looks very good for the money. Check out the brochure to know more about the car, visit VGM at www.volkswagen.com.my, or call 1-800-88-8947.
Correction: I mentioned that the glass rear window is the first of its kind where in actual fact the coupe-convertible-sun roof is the first in the world to feature a 5-piece hardtop with an integrated tilting/sliding glass roof. – Thanks for the tip ‘apalalu”.
