A retired British naval officer who wore a tie to work every single day of his life, Bruce Cato pulled into our family driveway behind the wheel of a gold 1969 Rambler Rogue convertible with a white folding top and a then-racy 290-cubic-inch V-8.
The Rogue wasn't the '65 Ford Mustang my dad had coveted years before. No, that car was sacrificed on the altar of a mortgage and a new four-bedroom family home in the suburbs.
But the Rogue was still a pretty cool car for its day and buying it was the sort of crazy thing my father never, ever did. An American Motors Rambler American two-door with more power, a flashier paint job, an upgraded interior and a soft top that would fold nicely into the boot — power-operated — the Rogue was really something in our neighbourhood of aging station wagons and dull, but functional, family sedans.
It was a luxury car, or at least it was for middle-class types like us. Totally impractical — the back seat was a miniature version of a real back seat, in order to make space to tuck away the roof when down. And it was hugely expensive for a mid-level, white-collar type like my dad.
Oh, yes, he'd definitely gone bonkers that warm spring night. We had no warning at all, either. We learned later that he'd been driving home in his old Ford Falcon work car, it with the steel dashboard, three on the tree and seatbelts — well, if it had seatbelts, we never could find them.
The madness struck without warning. There on a car lot, under bright lights, the gold Rogue pulled him in with its siren's song, with its promise of freedom through open-air driving. He just lost it. As they say in England, he lost the plot.
Dad wheeled that Falcon into the lot, dropped the keys on the sales manager's desk, inked a contract and drove away a younger, happier, freer family man. He never spoke of that wretched Falcon again. The Rogue? His mood improved at the mere mention of it.
I loved that Rogue, too. Within three years, I had a driver's licence and my own car, a beat-up, rusting, 1962 Chevrolet Nova with fading green paint that cost me 250 bucks and many hours of sweat and toil just to keep it running.
When, to my amazement, April Templeman took pity on this awkward teenager and agreed to a date, on the big night, as I was walking out the door, my dad stopped me and said, "Here, let's swap. I want to have a look at what you're doing with that car of yours. You take mine."
He handed me the keys to the Rogue. I was slack-jawed, though not too stunned to jump into the gold Rogue and drive away before he could change his mind.
The freedom thing
Ah, convertibles. They are magical cars and they make for delightful memories. That's one of mine and you probably have several, too.
Clichéd as it is, there is just something amazing about driving with the roof down, wind in your hair, nothing between you and the sky above. It's the freedom thing.
But back in the day, owning a convertible was not what it is today.
The road noise. The leaky roof. The fear of knife-wielding thieves. The tiny back seat. Yech Even the sexiest ragtop came with a long list of annoyances.
As I said, dad was nuts to buy one. We loved him all the more for it.
Today, well, things are very different. Convertibles with soft roofs are vastly superior to anything back in the sixties and seventies. The inside of the foldable lids, the fabric ones, are all lined and nicely finished. Road noise is muted, roofs never leak and the various power mechanisms are dead reliable.
And then we have this other crop of convertibles, the ones with retractable roofs. They have totally shaken up the convertible game.
It all began less than a decade ago. Back then, there were two mass-production retractables on the market, both built by Mercedes-Benz. Now, some 10 models are out there and more could be on the way. So about a third of all mainstream production convertibles for sale now sport a retractable hardtop.
They are commonplace. Cars like the excellent Volkswagen Eos are not only safe and refined, they are pretty affordable. The Eos stickers at $35,975. There are others like it, too.
How odd is that? Not so long ago, the retractable hardtop convertible was an oddity, a footnote in auto history. The archetype of the genre was the Diefenbaker-era Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner. It was a classic slab of Detroit iron with a vast rear deck the size of a helipad and a price to match.
Then in the late 1990s, Mercedes made a success of the SLK with its retractable tin lid. That reignited interest in a style of car that purports to combine the fun and sun of a convertible with the convenience and security of a coupe.
Better engineering has made roof-retracting systems reliable, convenient and relatively affordable. One punch of a button and the top slides into the trunk. Heck, they're almost practical.
Like old-school convertibles, the hard-top ones are cool to drive with the roof tucked into the trunk, but when the roof is up, they are not the leaky, drafty, fabric-topped rides of my youth.
Auto makers who sell them say the hardtop convertible is a full-time car, a 12-month ride, a four-seasons automobile good to go 365 days a year.
Security is another plus. Hardtops can't be sliced open like a vinyl convertible top. Yet with the mere push of a button, something that on first glance is a solid sheet of auto-grade steel rears up and back, folds neatly into three or more sections and disappears into the trunk.
Speaking of trunks, today's best designs provide a reasonable amount of space back there.
That's a far cry from the power hardtop on the Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner. Produced from 1957 to 1959, its roof was a technical wonder, even though it was prone to malfunction. But when the top was down, it took up oceans of trunk space.
The problem was so acute and so obvious, Ford provided buyers with specially designed luggage to fit the minuscule trunk. Surprisingly, Ford managed to sell 20,766 Skyliners, split between a 190-horsepower and a 245-horsepower version. Today, a well-restored version is likely to run into the mid-$40,000s or higher.
Decades ago, the Skyliner, with its head-turning, roof-disappearing act, did what today's hardtop convertibles also do: turn an everyday car into a sweet, interesting gem.
That's critical. I mean, nobody needs a convertible, a hedonistic treat. But what we need and what we want are two different things, and that's the point of convertibles. Driving into the sunset with the top down is a self-absorbed act of pleasure. Nothing terribly wrong with that, either.
For some baby boomers today, a convertible is a midlife-crisis car or a reward. For others, it's a feel-good emotional car.
Whatever convertibles are, sales of them are seasonal, with the peak coming every year in the spring and early summer when the weather is warming and promises to get warmer, still.
Moreover, given the boom-and-bust nature of convertible sales, and given that convertibles amount to just a tiny fraction of all new-car sales, and given that only about one in five owners replaces a convertible with another, it really is surprising to have so many models out there.
Here, we should give some credit to suppliers who have been doing a good job of pushing ahead with new designs and new twists on the convertible top. Remember, even the world's largest car makers rarely if ever bother developing their own roof systems.
Two German-based companies, Karmann and Edscha, are among the world leaders here. Karmann you might have heard of, but Edscha is an upstart, even though it has been producing convertibles since 1985.
Edscha's current line includes the Aston Martin DB9 and V8 Vantage, Audi TT, Bentley Azure, BMW's 3-Series, 6-Series and Z4, Jaguar XK, Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder and Rolls Royce Phantom DropHead, and the tiny Smart fortwo cabriolet.
Not to be lost in all this is Canadian-based Magna Car Top Systems. It is also a major player — Porsche 911, Mercedes-Benz SL, Chevrolet Corvette, Cadillac XLR.
According to Edscha officials, retractable hard-top designs have been getting a lot of attention in the last two years and for all the good reasons we've already mentioned. Yet many buyers still prefer traditional fabric roofs.
Fabric convertibles, for one, are less expensive and less complex. Their old-school simplicity lies at the heart of their appeal. Ford's Mustang convertible is a perfect example. At a starting price of $28,899, it is downright affordable.
The good news for consumers now is that the design, functionality and quality of today's convertibles have all progressed dramatically.
If my dad were here today, surely we would not call him nutty for rolling home behind the wheel of one of these new convertibles.
We'd just consider him lucky.
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