TESTED 2012 Volkswagen Eos Lux
WHAT IS IT? The only retractable hardtop convertible with a built-in sunroof.
HOW MUCH? $34,165 for the base Eos Komfort; $38,020 as tested for the Eos Lux, including wood trim, leather upholstery, keyless ignition and navigation system.
WHAT’S UNDER THE HOOD? A 2-liter in-line 4-cylinder with turbocharging and direct injection (rated at 200 horsepower and 207 pound-feet of torque); dual-clutch 6-speed automated manual transmission.
IS IT THIRSTY? The E.P.A. mileage rating for 2012 is 22 m.p.g. city, 30 m.p.g. highway.
THE 2012 Volkswagen Eos has an 8-cylinder. Not under the hood, but beneath the luggage compartment, behind the spare wheel. That’s where VW’s team of mad engineers put the 8-cylinder hydraulic pump that powers the Eos’s retractable hardtop, which is as fascinating a piece of mechanical art as you’ll find anywhere on the road.
Not content to merely build a folding power hardtop, VW went for extra credit by adding a power tilt-and-slide sunroof — roughly the size of Wilt Chamberlain’s mirrored bedroom ceiling — within the folding power hardtop.
The Eos is the only car on the road with such a gymnastic lid, and I suspect I know why other companies haven’t taken this path: the roof, in its entirely, has 470 individual components.
Eos might be the goddess of dawn, but it dawns on me that the cost of this roof probably rivals that of the car beneath it. Yes, the warranty runs for three years or 36,000 miles. Why do you ask?
Whatever the engineering or accounting challenges it might have presented, the Eos’s top provides a daily decision tree for open-air motoring. Perhaps it’s sunny, but not quite sunny enough, so you keep the roof up but the sunroof open. Or maybe just tilt the sunroof? That’s a possibility. Or you can go top-up but windows-down, creating an open, pillarless coupe like the Mercedes-Benz CL550.
In that case, would you want the gigantic interior sunshade open or closed? Never mind — just put the top all the way down and go full convertible. Unless it gets chilly, in which case, deploy the wind blocker that mounts behind the front seats. And maybe roll those windows back up.
Basically, the Eos can transform its roof into any setup but T-tops. Your turf is safe for now, 1986 Chevy Monte Carlo.
Fortunately for the Eos, it’s not all glitz up high and disappointment below, like “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” The Eos uses the excellent 2-liter turbo 4 and 6-speed DSG transmission, a combination that enlivens many a Volkswagen (and Audi).
While the gestalt of four-seat convertibles typically favors languid soaking of the rays over outright speed, the Eos is capable of a respectable 0-to-60 m.p.h. run in the low six-second range. The engine begins making maximum torque at just 1,800 r.p.m., imbuing the car with a responsiveness that belies its relatively modest power numbers.
While the 2012 Eos gets a styling update, with a new front end to match the rest of the lineup, the car beneath is much the same as the one that made its debut for the 2007 model year. Which is to say, it hails from the epoch when Volkswagen sometimes overreached (see: Phaeton luxury liner), but also created cars that were so beautifully wrought as to tread treacherously close to Audi turf. The Eos, especially when trimmed out in Lux trappings with leather and walnut trim, looks and feels like a junior Audi. Watch your back, A5 Cabriolet.
Yet the Eos Komfort’s $34,000 base price is some $10,000 away from A5 territory, and the Audi’s roof is made of old-fashioned cloth, like a pioneer’s wagon or Magellan’s sails.
The only other four-seat hardtop convertible at this price is the Chrysler 200 Limited, which goes for $34,315. And just because the 200 and the Eos are similarly priced doesn’t mean they’re necessarily competitors. A vasectomy might cost as much as a year’s worth of ice cream, but that doesn’t mean it’s equally enjoyable.
With the Eos, Volkswagen scoured its parts shelves, added serious engineering know-how and created a niche — the value-priced European hardtop convertible. Since the Eos made its debut, the sun has risen more than 1,800 times, but still no one has challenged the formula: the guts of a GTI with the roof of the gods.
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