I love my little T-roof motor car

For the first time this year I drove with my top off – on the car, that is, not me. My lovely little car has a T-roof (I actually prefer the more cosmopolitan sounding Landau to T-roof) so it therefore qualifies as a convertible. I’ve had this delightful and surprisingly spunky little auto since 1992 and I’m yet to grow weary of it. That’s primarily because, the first time I remove the top I remember exactly why I bought it.

I have an almost fetishistic love of convertibles, either ragtops or T-roofs, it matters not to me. I like to be able to look up and into the blue sky; I like the feeling of the fresh air and breeze in my hair (Wendy hates the breeze in her hair, by the way: “Argh – convertible hair!); I like the fact that when the car is shiny and clean and the top is off, people still look as I cruise by. Really I would like babes to look as I cruise by, but it’s usually 17-year-old youths who suffer from T-roof envy.

I still remember the first time I took it out with the roof off on a bright early springtime day. I cruised to some winding country roads inserted Hendrix to the sound system and turned up Purple Haze to full volume. I was in sheer bliss. It was almost sexual so thrilled was I to actually have my very own convertible.

Ever since I was a kid I’d loved that style of vehicle. Riding in, or driving an open car is so very different from being in a plain old sedan. My old man was a plain old Chevy sedan kind of guy, so I would look with envy at the very rich people across the street who had not just one, but two ragtops, a Ford and a Cadillac.

My enchantment never wavered. A friend in high school had a bright pink ’57 Ford ragtop. That guy got laid more than Sinatra (or so he reported), and I put it down to the car. I never put it down to the fact he was very handsome, charming in an adolescent sort of way and superbly athletic to the degree he went on to play professional football to reasonable repute. No, it was the car that got him the action, in my esteem. I wonder whatever happened to his car? I’d love to have it.

Once when my ex and I took a trip to Maui with her daughter, we went to pick up the car we’d booked – some el cheapo bit of Suzuki crap that was in the lowest category of Alamo’s rentals. The Alamo guy said, quite apologetically, that they had run out of cars in the ‘vehicular scum’ category, so would I object to taking a Mustang convertible for the same price as the cruddy little car? “Please twist my arm just a little bit,” I advised. Cruising Maui in a Mustang convertible is not at all a bad thing.

Now, we are at the point where both our cars are getting elderly. We have to consider replacement at some point – although I personally want to be buried with my car – and we would ideally like to downsize to one vehicle.

I, of course, want another convertible. Wendy, the more practical of this nuptial duet, suggests convertibles are not terribly practical, especially in this climate. She’s right, of course. She will concede a sunroof, but doesn’t want to go any farther than that.

I don’t know what to say about that, so I think I’ll go out for a ride in the T-bar sunshine.