After a 9-year hiatus, the Golf Cabriolet is back! With a quick soft-top that retracts in 9 secs, this car is fast in more ways than one.

Photos: Joel Tam

Volkswagen sold more than 680,000 Golf cabriolets in the past, and with the way things are looking for the new model, they might just be reaching a new high in the future. Locally sold out with a long waiting list, the new Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet has been branded as 'the everyday cabriolet' by the company.

We take it out to see if it really deserves that title.

First impressions from the outside are good. The car looks decent with the top up or down. The swept-back windscreen provides a lower slung profile, making it sportier than your standard Golf. This is something that you could be proud of pulling up in a hotel driveway in.

Finishing on the outside is good too, a neat silver accent surrounds the car, splitting the roof from the main bodywork. Silver or chrome tailpipes would have been nice too. With modern rollover protection technology, the new Cabriolet does without the need of a roll bar. This allows for a sleeker silhouette.

Bring the top up (it only takes 9 seconds), and you'll be surprised at how quiet the cabin is. For a soft-top convertible, the Golf manages to shut out most of the exterior ambient noise. Buses and heavy vehicles that rush by will still be very much audible though. But still very livable on a day-to-day basis.

Inside is standard Volkswagen fare - well built, neat and dependable - just the things that women look for in a man (considering most Cabriolet owners are likely to be women).

Mated to a 7-speed DSG gearbox, the 1.4 TSI engine pushes a healthy 160 bhp. This should be enough for both the young tai-tai and the poseur boy-racer. Floor it, and the speedometer's needle will show 100 km/h in 8.4 seconds from standstill.

Just a little longer than the century dash is the time it takes for the soft-top to retract. 9 seconds is all you need to wait for some wind-in-hair motoring (you can do even do it while the car is in motion of up to 30 km/h). The lever will control everything, so no additional manual unlatching or latching is necessary. The system will sense whether the roof is completely opened or closed, and informs the driver via an acoustic signal and a visual message in the multifunction display.

Smoked LED rear lights were first seen on the Golf R, now here. Daytime running lights formed by 15 LEDs add a modern touch to the front face.

So far, everything seems great. The car will even seat four adults comfortably. Both headroom and legroom are within acceptable levels. Driving alone or with your loved one? There is even a wind deflector that will fit over the rear seats to cancel out annoying wind noise and air turbulence.

Perhaps the only let down for this car is the boot. It's not so much the lack of space that bothers me - most convertibles have limited boot capacity due to roof stowage. Rather, it's the opening that is impractical. The short boot results in one having to load up from the side rather than a top-down action (pun not intentional).

That said, the Golf Cabriolet is still a highly accomplished car. It's got the space, pace and some grace to boot. Truly a convertible for all occasions, except maybe to the grocery store.