If I didn’t know better, I’d start to think there were people with totally different opinions on this board.
Unless it is raining or under freezing, the top isn’t up on my car. What you call noise, I call the wind in your hair… the sounds around you… like the birds singing (ok, who am I kidding, the engine revving).
Sun beating down on you??? Have you not noticed that people like to bask in the sun? We have entire states that depend on this desire for their economy.
As far as the look of a rag top… all I can think about when I see one with the top up is how much fun that would be when the weather is nicer.
Up here in Canadia, half the year is spent in weather conditions not conducive to driving with the top down. As a result, I’ve never seen it as at all sensible to have a convertible. Plus, to be honest, the wind in my hair while driving just annoys me. But I don’t begrudge people who do like that kind of thing.
Sensible… I thought we were talking about small two door cars with a tiny back seat, a small trunk, and 300+ HP under the hood. Sensible doesn’t enter the equation.
Mine normally goes under the car cover around Thanksgiving (late November for you Canadians) and comes out sometime in March. My “winter” car is a 4WD Blazer.
I’ve been caught a couple of times driving it when I was at work and unexpected bad weather came in. Driving with no weight in the back of a rear wheel drive, high HP/high torque car with performance tires on ice is a scary thing.
Sensible… that word doesn’t belong in this thread.
people don’t bask in the sun in their cars. They roll up the window and turn on the air conditioner. The same applies to the “sounds of nature” which in a car is usually accompanied by the sounds of other cars. That’s why God invented the car stereo.
yah, we knew it was parades all along. You’re not foolin anyone.
Another thing for me is blaring the radio. As it’s a badass Mustang (Black Sunshine, Eleanor, whatever) I require high volume Devil music to be blasting through the (admittedly somewhat weak compared to aftermarket) Shaker audio system while driving. Usually Black Sabbath, System Of A Down, or something equally menacing. A convertible would drown a lot of that out with wind noise.
What… do you guys think the normal features of a car suddenly stop working when the top is down? 90 degrees with a nice 40 degree blast from the AC is amazing… even better is 40 degrees and driving through the fall colors in Southern Indiana with a 75 degree blast coming through the vents.
As for my Shaker 500… with Jimmy Buffet blasting my wife was smiling so big she didn’t even realize the speedo was over 100. (clearly it is totally out of wack since the legal posted speed limit is 65).
I consider my Mustang to be perfectly sensible. There’s only two of us so we don’t need the back seat, the truck is at least as big as the one in our Corolla, and I’m driving it year round without any traction-related issues.
And those 305 ponies under the hood allow me to remain a sensible distance ahead of most of the traffic on the roads.
So, the fact that my 500 shakes the side mirrors with the bass, and it is easily heard with the wind from the top down at 100 MPH… I somehow don’t have a good enough sound system? Did I mention I am playing Jimmy Buffet? (maybe Eric Clapton if I’m feeling wild)
Nah, I always leave it in the “all seats” mode. I like hearing the music from all around me, and plus I’ve got two boys that (somehow manage to) sit back there and they need their heavy metal indoctrination as well.
I am sure you can hear it, but can you really HEAR it going 100mph with the top down?
My Cobra isn’t a convertible, and it has a hole in the dash where the radio goes, but my MX-5 is and the radio gets loud enough to kill any wind noise from having the top down. A Mustang is way more practical than an MX-5!
