The Slow Death of the Convertible

Blame the SUV epidemic if you must, but the convertible is quietly slipping into automotive extinction. In 2000, there were 31 drop-top models among the UK’s 30 most popular carmakers. By 2025, that number has plummeted to just 16—a staggering 48% decline. More tellingly, most of that falloff happened in the past five years, as the market shrank from 29 models to its current bare-bones lineup.

A new UK market survey reveals that 68% of major car brands no longer offer a single convertible. Of names like BMW, Fiat, Ford, Jeep, Mazda, MG, Mini, Mercedes, Porsche, and Volkswagen, only five—BMW, Mazda, Mercedes, Porsche, and VW—have managed to keep the format alive consistently over the last quarter century.

Even Audi, once proud to crown its range with the R8 Spyder, has now abandoned convertibles altogether.

Electric convertibles? Rarer still. Only the MG Cyberster and Fiat 500e C currently hold space in the mainstream. Abarth’s 500e and Maserati’s GranCabrio Folgore sit even further out on the niche edge.

Icons like the Mazda MX-5, first launched in 1990, still hang on. So do the Porsche 911 Cabriolet and a dwindling lineup of BMW Z-series, Mercedes SL, and Volkswagen’s open-top offerings. But with options fading fast, the open-air motoring dream is becoming less a category and more a collector’s memory.