What’s The Best Convertible?

If your first impulse is to answer that question with another question – namely, “What counts as a convertible?” – don’t worry about it. As long as enough of the top comes off for you to see the sky unobstructed and there’s sufficient airflow to give you a headache, it’s convertible enough for this AA. And it doesn’t matter if the car “converts” or the top is something you remove and stow in the trunk or leave in your garage. Top down, top off, entire roof goes away or just the bit over your head … whatever, it’s all good.

Now, me personally, I’m thinking of the classic “folding soft top” mode. And though the snobbery is entirely unearned, my feeling is a convertible car should either be designed for cruising, or if it’s going to be a sporting machine, it should be a roadster – that is, a car designed from the start to be topless. Once you start cutting the tops off muscular cars originally conceived with a stiffening roof, thus making them flexible flyers and neutering their handling (in my imagination, anyway), I cannot in good conscience condone the concoction.

So, while I do fancy a Mustang convertible, I would not get a GT (like below), as I would feel I was “wasting” the engine – never mind that the chassis is plenty stiff, I assume, given that it’s 2026 and engineers know things. No, give me the boostang minus a top. Or heck, let me get whatever was the last year for the V6 ‘Stang off Marketplace, that’ll be fine. Convertibles are more fun when you’re going slow, anyway.

With going slow in mind, I think the perfect convertible is a big boat, something you could fit your entire crew into for a night on the town or a trip to the beach. In college, a pal had a Chrysler Newport convertible that was the ideal machine for such things. Six people could fit comfortably, and as that massive trunk lid hints, there was ample space for beach paraphernalia (or smuggling more friends into the drive-in, I’m old).