I’ve always had a thing for a car without a roof. There’s nothing I like better than driving through a balmy summer’s twilight with the top down and the wind fluttering through what’s left of my hair.

I come by it naturally enough, I suppose. My dad is an Old-Tyme Car Guy who still gets a kick out of souping up engines and burning rubber. He’s owned motorcycles, hot-rods, antiques, classics, and clunkers over the years; I grew up surrounded by his collection and not realizing that it was unusual for one family to own a dozen or more cars. I never did acquire Dad’s passion for tinkering — I’m sorry to say I’m the sort who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty — but I love driving a stylish car and, thanks to my dad’s collection, I’ve been fortunate enough to have access to some very stylish cars indeed.

My favorite of the family fleet is a 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 XL. Dad bought this car back in the early ’80s. The body was a rusted-out hulk then, and Dad’s original plan was to transplant the engine into something else and scrap the rest. However, he liked the smooth-as-baby-oil ride so much that he decided to keep the entire car and restore it. As so often happens to my dad’s good intentions, though, the restoration got back-burnered and the Galaxie eventually ended up parked with all the other projects in “the junkyard” behind the garage. A few years passed. Then I earned my driver’s license and Dad told me I could have one of the junkers out behind the garage to play with. I naturally selected the Galaxie — the one that needed the most work. I didn’t care, though; it was a ragtop, you see, and that automatically made it cool in my book.

I drove the rust-bucket version of this car to high school for a long time, and loved every mile of it. I probably would’ve been content to leave it a wreck forever, but in my senior year, that long-threatened restoration finally happened and the Galaxie became my Cruising Vessel. The car was an integral part of my self-image after that; I logged a lot of miles in it during my late teens and early twenties, and I had a lot of good times in its tuck-and-rolled seats. (Take that as you will.)
These days, sadly, I don’t have a lot of time for the Cruising Vessel, and it has mostly reverted back to the care of my parents. But that doesn’t mean I no longer have the experience of driving topless. Two years ago next month, I bought my first new (as opposed to used) car, a 2003 Ford Mustang, and yes, it’s a ragtop, too. As Scarlett O’Hara declared that she would never again go hungry, I have decided that I will always drive a convertible, even if it’s some kind of futuristic hydrogen-fueled landspeeder. I just love the damn things.

Which brings me, at long last, to the point of this little post: I have added a new photo of my two favorite cars to the gallery. Click, and enjoy the ragtoppy goodness…

(Incidentally, I am fully aware of the ironical fact that I’ve just made a big deal about how I like to drive with the top down, but both of the cars in the photo have their tops up. It was raining that day, and I managed to snap the pic during a rare moment of sunshine.)