Evoque Convertible for Australia

Range Rover's smallest vehicle, the city-savvy Evoque, is about to be scalped.

Yep, the metal roof has been sliced clean off the popular entry-level luxury SUV and these spy photos show it's been replaced by a weather-proof cloth folding roof.

The Evoque Convertible could be unveiled as early as the 2015 New York motor show next week, or Land Rover could be eyeing off the Los Angeles show in November, as the US market will be the preferred habitat of the unique SUV-cabriolet.

Whenever the new model makes its debut, rest assured it will eventually find its way to Australia next year.

"We will be taking this when it becomes available," said James Scrimshaw, senior public affairs executive at Jaguar Land Rover Australia.

"We don't have a production month or pricing to share at this early stage, but we do expect to have it available for Australian customers in 2016," he added.

Expected to command a substantial premium over the regular Evoque, which is priced between $49,995 and $81,470, the convertible version could be priced from around $60K when it arrives here.

It would become the first push-button operated convertible SUV to be sold in Australia, considering vehicles like the Jeep Wrangler and past Suzuki Jimnys featured manually removable roofs.

Nissan developed a convertible version of the Murano but it was only ever sold in the USA, and wasn't very successful at that. Range Rover will be hoping the Evoque doesn't follow its lead.

The photo and video of the Range Rover Evoque Convertible with its roof down is an official image from the British SUV company, which was testing the vehicle underground. It was granted "exclusive access to the 26-mile (42km) network of Crossrail tunnels for a development test with a difference," says the company.

Despite appearing to have the ground clearance of a hot hatch, the Range Rover Evoque Convertible will still be expected to tackle off-road trails, as director of Land Rover Programmes and Australian ex-pat Murray Dietsch, explained.

"The tunnels are still under construction, so we had a unique opportunity to explore the vehicle's all-terrain ability in unchartered territory," he said.

A new front-end design will adhere to that of the facelifted Evoque revealed at the 2015 Geneva motor show in early March, while other areas of the two-door car, such as the rear-end and doors, will be slightly different to accommodate the absence of a fixed metal roof.

The roof mechanism is expected to take less than 20 seconds to fold but because of the lack of a fixed roof various body reinforcements are required, which could make the SUV carbio around 100kg heavier than the normal Evoque. Expect boot space to suffer too.

The new model will be manufactured at Land Rover's Halewood plant in the UK, alongside the hard-top five- and three-door Evoque variants.