Finally, we nail it. The light is perfect, the backdrop is stunning and both cars are exactly where we want them to be. The long drive up to this location has been well worth it. And with the shots in the can, we decide to head back.
What’s also nice is that the sun’s about to set, so we can drive these cars like they are meant to be driven; with their tops down. Yes, we’ve been driving them all day and we’ve covered a significant distance too, but would you flip open the roof if the outside air temperature was a blazing 38 degrees? Exactly.
It’s so hot even now, I don’t expect we’ll be keeping the roofs open for long. Yes, the ambient temperature has dropped and the surrounding air isn’t as hot anymore, but I can still hear the earth ‘hiss’ as the heat dissipates and it still feels like we’re walking around on a hot plate.
Then we start moving, and immediately, I realise I’m wrong. The temperature of the air blowing in drops as soon as we pick up even a bit of speed, and with the cooler air now flowing in and swirling around us, the experience is just magic. It just is the perfect setting. The sun’s going down behind the hills, the lake is glistening and even the road we are driving on is perfectly manicured and full of interesting twists and turns. It helps no end that both these cars are fast, powerful and an absolute pleasure to drive. Convertibles, they do work, sometimes really well, even in our environment.
Problem is they aren’t very popular here. Sure, classic car owners love them, and we always seem to enjoy the drop-top experience, but public opinion says convertibles are quite unusable in our conditions. And with good reason. Finding the right time to put the roof down, for example, is a serious challenge. Either it’s too hot, too cold, too windy, too wet or too dusty; take your pick. And then there’s the traffic: you don’t want to be pulling the roof down in the middle of that hot, dusty, grime-filled scene. What makes matters worse is that almost all convertibles have structures that are fundamentally compromised in comparison to regular cars. Convertibles are generally created by lopping the roof (and supporting pillars) off and this means the structure lacks the natural strength of a closed tube. And then our broken roads make it worse by transferring huge loads through the chassis which, if unchecked, can give the roof and structure a good shaking. Is it any wonder then that convertibles driven carelessly here soon feel a bit bedraggled and ‘loose’. Then there’s the fact that they aren’t very practical to begin with — the rear seats are a contortionist’s delight, you can’t fit more than a couple of toilet bags in the boot and are these cars even engineered to take on the fury of the monsoons in the first place?
The reality is that things aren’t much better in other markets either. Driving a convertible in Los Angles traffic is almost as bad, with exhaust from 18-wheelers and buses spewing out at you, and California, the convertible capital of the world, is almost as hot as India in summer. Even some of their roads are poor. So, owning a convertible and making full use of it isn’t just challenging in India but everywhere else too.
Rivan RS 
Viraaj Bhatnagar
Uday Singh
Suraj Viswanathan
