This type of car is disappearing: Where did all the affordable convertibles go? | Opinion

This week, Ferrari revealed the replacement for its SF90 Spider supercar, the 849 Testarossa Spider, and my first thought was that I’m glad convertibles are still on the cards - knowing full well that I would likely never be in a position to own this model.

But then my thoughts turned to the opposite end of the market, the one where cars cost about the same amount as the optional extras for a car like the Ferrari 849 Testarossa Spider. Where are all the convertibles?

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The rest of what you’re about to read is based less on rational ideas and more around one simple fact - driving with the roof down makes any trip more fun, even a short, inner-city commute.

I know this because I own a convertible - a fairly old, slow, rattly one. It’s from a time when even the most mundane cars had convertible options. Remember the Holden Cascada or Ford Focus cabriolets? Less of a ‘blue vs red’ rivalry than the Bathurst 1000, for sure.

The Europeans in particular loved them, Peugeot’s hatchbacks, the VW Eos, Saab, Audi, BMW. All their entry-grade cars had drop-top options at one stage or another.

Now, if you want to buy a drop-top for less than six-figures in Australia, the options are extremely slim. A Mazda MX-5 was probably been the first thing that came to mind, and the Mini Cooper is still available with a soft roof, but north of that there’s the somewhat costly Ford Mustang.

If you’re keen to be seen, the electric MG Cyberster is $99,900 before on-roads, but if you’re a keen driver it would be low down on my personal list of recommendations.

Everything else starts getting out of reach for most people, if you don’t already consider more than $90,000 for a drop-top Mustang out of reach.

Without getting too complex, there are a few factors contributing to the drop-off in drop-tops and most can be categorised as coming down to money, safety or taste.

The first is self-explanatory. Convertibles have more moving parts and are built (and bought) in smaller volumes. Add a few thousand to the cost of building a car because it has more moving parts and requires some extra manufacturing steps, then suddenly the customer is paying an even larger margin and a $40,000 small sedan becomes a $50,000 cabriolet.

Even today, a Mustang GT Convertible is almost $6000 more than the equivalent hard-top. The gap is a little more in Mini Land (where the starting prices are lower and so the per cent increase becomes higher).

If you’re a company looking to cut costs, culling the cost of developing a convertible alongside a sedan or hatch seems as unfortunately effective as nixing the development of your manual gearbox when everyone starts buying automatics.

But then there are the factors that come down to preference or perception - one being that convertibles seem less safe than other cars. And the fact is that in many ways they are. The most obvious concern is if your car somehow goes wheels-up, there’s a lot less between you and the ground.

The rest of the car will be less rigid because of the lack of ‘finished’ structure, the same way a matchbox is harder to twist when it’s in the cardboard sleeve.

But convertibles must still pass all the same design rules (ADRs here in Australia) to be sold. Perhaps companies decided the costs (again) of meeting those were simply not worth having a convertible in the line-up.

Because of their lower sales volume, convertibles also weren’t often chosen for crash testing. At the start of the decade, a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in the US found that while there was ‘no added risk’ to driving a convertible, decisions made by drivers such as not wearing a seatbelt or driving under the influence of alcohol made convertibles far more dangerous than other cars.

“Convertible drivers were slightly more likely to be wearing seat belts and slightly less likely to be speeding, though they were a bit more likely to be impaired by alcohol.”

That last part sparked a thought, is a convertible something you’re more likely to drive if you’re seeking a ‘good time’?

Does driving a convertible make it seem like you’re not as serious? More likely to make a frivolous decision?

Is it simply tacky to be a ‘convertible person’?

As well as the economics of convertibles being harder to justify in the boardroom of a car brand, there’s one more thing that’s probably doing it.

New-car buying habits have changed a fair bit since the turn of the century. We’re seeing SUVs and utes at the top of the charts rather than the once-ubiquitous sedans and hatchbacks.

No one has tried, at least not commercially or socially successfully, to create a convertible version of an SUV or a ute.

The exception, apparently, was the popular but short-lived VW T-Roc convertible, but I'm of the opinion that everyone in Europe who bought one suffered some kind of shared psychosis.

And remember the Range Rover Evoque Convertible? Given how drawn to SUVs people have become, maybe it’s for the best that our most popular new cars are no longer coming in soft-top form. A look at the Evoque Convertible will convince you.

The Mini remains the only car within the reach of most new-car-buying mortals that offers a convertible version or a hard-top, while the MX-5 is holding down the fort in pure drop-top sports car land. At least as long as they stick around, there’s hope for those who aren’t so fond of tanning beds.