Page 78 - Phonebox Magazine January 2011

January! Awaken your senses, buy a convertible!
You may well laugh, but this time of year always reminds me of open top motoring. A convertible is arguably the best mode of transport all year round. Not least because it converts from normal family car, to sporty fun car, but also lends itself to be your very own pickup truck. Christmas trees, carriage clocks, ironing boards, all have been seen precariously slung into the back of a convertible. And why not...
More importantly, something happens to you
or at least your character when you own a convertible. Maybe you become younger and more irresponsible with your roof off. Your hair ruffled, not combed, your collar buffeted and agitated, not neat and in line, your senses in tune to weather, sounds, smells, speed. Real Freedom...
The seasons may change, but your convertible still remains the right choice whatever the weather I say.
In the summer, time spent in any car crawling from place to place in the ever increasing jam of motors, in the heat, can be hard work and desperately dull. The destination is at this point the goal and the prize as the minutes and hours tick by. However, whip your roof off, and all of a sudden, the journey becomes the star of the show. Yes, All of a sudden, the need to get there simply vanishes. It all changes there and then. You change from a road-weary traveler, to a life-loving, pleasure seeking, fun loving wild child. The ride home just became Fun! You will undoubtedly turn up to wherever you’re headed cheerful and grinning. Even if it rains!
As the year rolls on and the days start to get shorter and cooler, enter: Autumn.
This season is just fantastic with no roof. The air is cooling now, there are heaps of leaves to whoosh through, there’s still plenty of
stunning evenings for a ride out to a country pub, with your best scarf on, and the heating turned up full. I’d quite often go out late at night in the Autumn to just drive with no traffic and no roof ... and one time I can remember with no Petrol! Have a think for a second ... Who would you call at 2:00 on a Tuesday Morning for a can of Petrol? I ran down my list of options of who to call, thought about each person long and hard, considered the consequences .... And called a cab!
Spring mornings up next ... (How am I doing? Convinced yet??) The perfect time for roof- off driving: fresh mornings with proper clean air. What a way to start your day. With the promise of warm sunshine days just around the corner, the convertible comes in to its own once again. And then there’s the smells; the scent of newly opened flowers, muck spreading on the fields, Lavender, mown grass, it’s like a walk in the country in fast forward whilst sat in a comfy chair. Mornings can be looked forward to now ... Sensory overload and so much fun to be in-touch with nature by just sitting in your car.
And then there’s winter for a completely different set of reasons. For years I used to collect my Christmas tree in my BMW Convertible, which I sold to Colin the Copper in Olney, that’s the car, not the tree. I think he probably did the same.
I too moved long bits of wood, didn’t quite manage a carriage clock, but I did get a complete drum kit in there once, including the drummer! Winter sun is something we do well for in this country, and you really can feel the strength of the sun and indeed sometimes get a red forehead from its heat whilst driving topless in it...or is that chapping from the cold? Ahh well it’s the same thing I’m sure...
I Love convertibles, and indeed the new breed of convertibles which have a folding hard-top, absolutely civilized transport nowadays without the whistles and drips of the older rag tops. That said, part of the fun of rag tops is the “box of tissues” school of plugging leaks en route.
My chum Ellis had an old Porsche 944 Convertible with a badly fitting blue rag top. One of his first dates with his now ex-wife was that he treated her to the experience of the weekly car wash by going through The Car Wash! Her job, to sit in the back with a bunch of tissues and stem the water flow as and when it started. He of course would sit in the front, doing the same. Excellent! Romance is indeed alive and well...
He’s got a people-mover now and hundreds of kids, so still rushes through bundles of tissues, but washes his car by hand. How times have changed.
So to sum up the benefit of the convertible car on your wellbeing; you forget about life for a while, and that’s the bit we all need now and again, you become the envy of your chums for being so daring, you get to enjoy motoring all over again. And last but by no means least; you get yourself out of the £9 Christmas tree delivery charge once a year! I’d buy a convertible in a heartbeat over a regular car, because of how it makes you feel. If you’ve never tried it but even have a glimmer of intrigue about how this mode of transport could change your life, and are considering a change of motor... You really must!
Paul Kitchen. Motor Broker and Motor Writer.
www.cmcvs.co.uk
78 Phonebox Magazine