Brexit Kills Its First Car

The UK’s controversial rejection of the European Union has claimed its first automotive victim, but it’s almost certainly not the car anybody thought about. It is not a car from British mainstays like Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini, Lotus, Bentley or Rolls-Royce. In fact, far from being a British car, the victim is just about the most German car imaginable, Forbes reported. It is a Volkswagen and it is a convertible. Volkswagen’s brand chief, Herbert Diess, last week admitted the confusion and high probability of cross-border tariffs played a key role in the termination of a new convertible. Though he would not reveal which convertible, sources suggest it would either have been the Mark 8 Golf Cabriolet or the next Beetle Cabriolet, rather than a stand-alone Cabrio, like the unloved and abandoned Eos. “We are concerned about the UK,” Diess admitted. “We wanted to do a convertible now, but with the relatively weak UK market and the uncertainty about what will happen, we had to think against it.