Friday Fun Thread: Ragtops!

A while back in comments the suggestion was made to have a Friday Fun thread centered on ragtops. I like that idea a lot. I've always been a big fan of convertibles, owing mainly to having numerous friends in high school that owned drop-top cars of various vintages. Mrs. G. owned a convertible pre-kid; both Dad G. and Sis G. owned Jeep Wranglers; I've had pretty decent exposure to cars (and trucks) that can be shorn of their tops through the years.

This list is ENTIRELY subjective - pretty much *any* car with a convertible top is cool (I'm having a hard time thinking of an exception to this). Ragtops bring to mind warm summer days spent cruising the local beach scene, or Indian summer fall days spent bundled up with the heater running full blast under a canopy of brilliant-colored foliage, or a night out on the town in style. The wind in your hair (bear with me, I'm speaking metaphorically here), the sound of the open road, the visceral thrill of being out and moving and feeling it all.

In a convertible with the top down, you're exposed to the journey, not insulated from it.

So here's my top ten favorite drop-tops. I'm going to keep the list to cars that most people could afford, albeit some of them with a little extra saving. Otherwise the list would consist entirely of one-off Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Porsches with the occasional Rolls Royce or Bentley. Here's the list:

1. Jeep Wrangler. The Jeep tops the list because it is an eminently practical drop top. With the hard top and 4WD, it's an excellent year-round vehicle even in locales that see snow. Buy a bikini top and you can run it topless all summer long; you can even pop the doors off for the closest experience to a motorcycle on four wheels. Sure, it may take three men and a boy to get the top on in a hurry, but that's a small price to pay for an affordable open-air experience.

2. 1970s Cadillac El Dorado. Bonus style points for the longhorns on the hood. The mid-'70s El Dorados were the last of the American cars to have convertible tops for a good while - safety concerns all but stopped production for about a decade - and if there's a car to go out on, it's the El Dorado. In fact, the 1976 El Dorado was marketed as "the last American convertible". This would last until the mid 1980s when Chrysler brought out the LeBaron K-car with drop top.

3. MGB. The MGB is a personal favorite owing to a good friend of mine growing up who had not one but two MBGs when we were in high school and college. He was pretty insane about them, taking the hard top off in early March and not putting it on until the second snowfall (he insisted on waiting out the first "just in case"). It's a small, light, nimble car with the unfortunate drawback of being British... The upside, however, is that mods exist to bolt in American V8s...

4. Chevy Corvette. Really, is there any car more ubiquitous than a red convertible sports car? It's the archetypal "mid-life crisis" car; couple the red convertible with the Chevrolet Corvette - long the pinnacle of American sports car design - and it's the perfect storm of style and substance. Whether it's a rip-snortin' 427 ci V8 powered sidepipe endowed Stingray or a refined C6 with full handling package, the Corvette stirs the emotions in a way unlike any other American car - and even moreso in the convertible guise.

5. Chrysler LeBaron. Yes. It is a K-car, and as such - in normal body - would be shunned from any top ten list not having "Worst", "Ugliest", or "POS" in the title. However, there's a special slot for the 1980s LeBaron on the list - the 1982 LeBaron convertible marked the return of the American drop-top for the first time in 6 years. It sparked the revival of the American ragtop, and for that it deserves a slot on the list.

6. Ferrari Mondial. Okay, so "affordable Ferrari" is pretty much a contradiction in terms, I'll agree. The Mondial is about the closest you'll come to finding a Ferrari that an average person could afford (and used at that). The 2+2 seating is unusual in the 2-seat Ferrari world, as is the front-engine design. And while "cute" should never be used to describe one of Enzo Ferrari's masterpieces, the Mondial comes pretty damned close.

7. Buick LeSabre. Really, any GM B-body convertible from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s will do here. There's still a good number of affordable versions out there for someone looking for a restoration project; the body is shared with the Chevy Impala/Caprice/Biscayne, Pontiac Bonneville/Catalina, and Oldsmobile 88. It's a big hunk of American steel coupled with a sail-sized convertible top - add ridiculously overpowered V8 and go.

8. Ford Mustang. Along with the Wrangler, the Mustang is the most affordable car on the list. New 'Stangs aren't stratospherically priced, and mildly used models are (almost) inexpensive enough for a summer fun car. With the V8 option it's a powerful cruiser; with the V6 it still has oomph but won't garner too many tickets. Besides, how many songs have centered around the Ford Mustang?

9. Mercedes SL. On the upscale side is the Mercedes SL series. Even at nearly 40 years old the styling is still unique and appealing; the German-engineered Mercedes offering a blend of performance and comfort with a 4.5L V8 motor and leather-wrapped interior. With proper care and feeding, even a 25 year old variant can provide years of warm weather ragtop fun.

10. Mazda Miata. In much the same way as the LeBaron brought back the American convertible, the Miata brought back the two-seat, rear-drive roadster. Ever since the MBG left the scene in the late 197os, two-seater convertibles were basically limited to supercars far outside the price range of your average person. The Miata brought back the concept of a small, light, nimble two-seater with a removable roof, enabling a "Roadster Renaissance" of sorts in the 1990s.

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So there's my list of my favorite ragtops. Some make the list for their iconic stature; some make the list on nostalgia; some make the list because - even in a list devoted to fun cars - they are nothing more than car-shaped fun.

What drop-tops would be on your list?

That is all.