Everything here turns on one mechanism and what it costs. A fabric roof folds into a well behind the rear seats and takes little space when stowed. A folding hardtop is quieter and more secure and stacks into the boot, where it takes the luggage capacity with it. Both are heavier than a fixed roof, both sit high and far back, and both have to be paid for again in the structure underneath, because a body with no roof loses the stiffness a roof was providing.
Two rows or one is the other axis, and it separates this tag from roadster. Four-seat convertibles are usually derived from an existing closed car, which is how the shape occasionally reaches unlikely places: the Volkswagen T-Roc Cabriolet, at 4,268 mm, was an open-topped compact SUV, a combination almost no manufacturer has attempted. The steady end of the market is elsewhere, in sports cars and in the large luxury classes, where the mass penalty is easier to absorb and the buyer was never counting boot litres.
