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Convertible and SUV Hire Heraklion: 11 Cabriolets, 23 SUVs
Two small shelves on one listing: eleven open roofs and twenty-three crossovers, with what neither of them can do.
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Heraklion Car Hire Review
Insurance options available on all cars · TPL · CDW · SCDW · Full CDW
What separates the two shelves in practice
An open roof and a high seat get chosen for opposite reasons, and on a listing of 120 cars they sit at opposite ends. Eleven are cabriolets, twenty-three are SUVs, and Heraklion Drive counted both on a single day in September. The table sets them against each other on the points that decide a booking.
| What you are weighing | The 11 cabriolets | The 23 SUVs |
|---|---|---|
| Cars counted on the listing | 11 of 120 | 23 of 120 |
| Driven wheels | The front pair | The front pair, and not one of the 23 is four-wheel drive |
| Tyres it arrives on | Road | Road |
| The roof | Folds away, and takes part of the boot with it | Fixed, sometimes with rails on top |
| Luggage without a squeeze | Two people, two cases | Four people, four cases |
| Unpaved roads | Excluded by the contract | Excluded by the same contract |
| How quickly it books out | First, it is the smallest shelf here | Steadily, right through the summer |
Class labels overlap here, so these columns are not slices of one pie. Each figure is one shelf, counted on one day.
A day east with the roof down, hour by hour
One drive makes those eleven cars worth the trouble of holding one, and it runs east from Heraklion along the north coast. Here is its shape, including the part of the day when the roof goes back up.
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Before eight
Leave while the air is cool
The National Road east is quiet for the first hour and the sun is still low behind you. That stretch is over by about half past nine.
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The first 40 km
Past the airport, on toward Malia
You clear Nea Alikarnassos and the airport inside five kilometres. Ahead the road is motorway standard in places and old two lane in others. Local drivers treat the hard shoulder as a slow lane.
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Around 70 km out
Coffee at Agios Nikolaos
Agios Nikolaos sits 65 to 70 km from the city, an easy ninety minutes with the roof folded. Elounda is a slow quarter of an hour further on.
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Midday
The roof goes up, and that is not a failure
Shade on this coast is scarce and the sun at noon is not a figure of speech. Close it from about twelve until four, then open it again.
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The last hour of light
The shore road back
The run west as the light goes is the second reason to have booked this car. The same 70 km reads as a different road.
What to settle at the desk before you sign for a cabriolet
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1
Work the roof once, with the agent watching
Open it and close it before you leave the bay. Its condition is then something two people saw, not a line on a form.
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2
Read the deposit band and the excess together
An open roof usually sits a step above a compact on both. The supplier sets them, and both are shown on the car before you book.
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3
Photograph the fabric, the rear screen and the seals
The roof gets looked at hardest on return, and a scuff nobody can date is the argument worth avoiding.
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4
Decide where it sleeps
Fabric is not a lock. Hotel parking or a covered garage, and 84 of the 120 cars can be delivered to where you are staying.
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5
Filter for the gearbox before you fall for a photograph
Thirty-two of the 120 cars are automatic and eleven are cabriolets. Two small sets rarely overlap by much, so book earlier than you would for a compact.
What the extra ride height actually buys you
Seeing over the wall
On the lanes above the coast the stone walls sit at about bonnet height in a small car. A crossover puts your eyes above them, which matters at a blind corner.
A kerb, a verge, a rutted car park
The last thirty metres into a village square or a beach car park is often a gravel shoulder with a lip on it. Clearance is what keeps the underside off it.
The boot and the way you sit
Four cases fit without an argument, and the 140 km run west to Chania is easier from a higher seat.
Not grip, and not permission
None of the 120 cars here has four-wheel drive, all 23 are on road tyres, and the contract excludes unpaved roads on every one of them. Height is a view and a clearance, never a licence to leave the tarmac.
Where each of these is the wrong car
A July midday on the Messara plain
Matala is about 70 km south and the plain you cross is wide, bright and almost shadeless. With the roof up you sit in a small cabin under a fabric panel at the hottest hour of the day. Take the open car east in the morning instead.
Any track to a south coast cove
Dust gets into a soft top and stays there, and the contract rules out unpaved surfaces anyway.
Four adults and four cases
The folded roof lives in the boot. Two people and two cases is the honest ceiling here.
A mountain switchback
Narrow, steep, and genuinely shared with goats and sheep. A tall body leans more in those bends, and 88 of the 120 cars are manual.
The old streets after dinner
Seventy-one of the 120 cars are compacts because these lanes reward a small car. An SUV is the wrong tool for the last two hundred metres.
More Heraklion car hire options
What people ask before booking an open roof or a high seat
No. Four-wheel drive was counted at zero across the whole listing of 120 cars, on the same day as every other figure here. All 23 are crossovers: a taller body on a front-driven platform, riding on road tyres.
Not under the agreement you sign. Unpaved roads are excluded on every car offered here, and damage off a sealed surface stays with the driver. Ride height changes nothing, so park where the tarmac ends and walk.
Usually. The deposit band and the damage excess on an open-roof car normally sit a step above a compact from the same supplier, because the roof is an expensive component. Both belong to the supplier, and both are shown on the car before you book.
Earlier than anything else on this listing. Eleven cars is the smallest shelf here and it empties first in July and August. If you also need an automatic, 32 of the 120 cars have one, and two small sets rarely overlap by much.
Two people with two cases, comfortably. The folded roof has to go somewhere, and on a small soft top it goes into the boot. Four adults with four cases is an SUV booking, and there are 23 of those.
See which of the two is free on your dates
Eleven and twenty-three are the sizes of these shelves, not a promise about one week in August. Put your dates in and the list narrows to the cars a supplier in Heraklion will really hand over.
Check your dates