CONVERTIBLE

horse buggies, where design efforts centered on engine performance and reliability, not on creature comforts … like a proper roof and side glass or a heating system that could keep the glass from fogging up in a fully enclosed vehicle.

The demands for improved safety and shelter led Cadillac founder Henry Leland to introduce the fully closed body design in 1905. Leland’s basic ideas gained traction while engineers assigned to the development of convertible vehicles continued to battle design demons with leaks, drafts, noise and the painful consumer details of removing and reattaching the stubborn and fragile cloth roof contraption.

By 1925, the closed-cabin vehicle controlled 90 percent of the market, essentially cutting out the open-air era but not deterring an underground push for a true “convertible” that would balance the freedom of openness with the comfort of enclosure.

The convertible needed a breakthrough, and it got one in 1939 when Plymouth introduced the first power-controlled top.

The convenience of the power top was a brief boon, but the fruits of those improvements would have to simmer as automobile production in North America was all but halted for six years during World War II from 1939-’45.

But a booming postwar economy, consumer confidence, fresh designs from General Motors and some slick concepts from Ford helped push demand for the convertible through the 1950s to more than 5 percent of all new car sales, its highest level to that time.

Ford controlled much of the convertible market in the 1950s with its popular Thunderbird and Fairlane models. General Motors, meanwhile, was making a mark with its “hardtop” convertible design in the Cadillac Coupe de Ville and Buick Roadmaster.

The hardtop convertibles were constructed with a fixed roof that had to be removed. The pillarless look and disappearing side windows provided the feel of a convertible with the added protection and safety of a closed vehicle. But, when it was off, the roof needed to go someplace, which was far from handy.

The popularity of Ford models and the success of the GM hardtops kept convertible demand at about 6 percent of the automotive market through the 1960s.

The carefree attitude of the 1950s and ’60s gave way to the recessive ’70s with two oil embargoes, government proposals for expensive roll-over crash protection and a general disapproval of the quality control of domestic automakers.

Manufacturers continued to drop convertibles from their assembly lines, and in 1976 Cadillac announced its Eldorado would be the “last convertible in America,” prophetically holding that distinction until Chrysler savior Lee Iacocca unveiled the wildly popular LeBaron convertible in 1982.

The LeBaron was built on the ubiquitous K-Car platform and sold 23,000 units in its first year, which was more than seven times the sales projections. After a five-year drought, manufacturers were again making convertibles, and Iacocca was being celebrated for saving both Chrysler and the North American convertible. Ford and GM followed suit and converted their popularselling Sunbirds, Cavaliers, Mustangs and Camaros, while Chrysler continued to manufacture its popular Sebring-then-200 convertible.

European and Asian automakers offer a more eclectic lineup for convertible enthusiasts and budgets but most significant is that most sports cars were convertibles, whether MGs, Triumphs or the amazing Austin Healey Hundred.

Of course, the unmatched comfort of the traditional closed-air sedan will always keep the convertible in its isolated place among new car buyers, but the convenience of the metal folding top, for one, is helping to make it easier to justify what was once considered a frivolous secondcar purchase.

A convertible as a primary mode of transport? Yes, indeed, as they now merge somewhat sensible transportation and wind-in-your hair freedom into one vehicle.