Convertibles: single signals

Never mind the smart alecks, MIRANDA SAWYER writes from London, cars such as the Audi TT are a single person's dream come true

Convertibles are designed for single people. In the film School for Scoundrels, Terry Thomas steals the ding-dong minx from underneath Ian Carmichael's nose by cruising up in a soft-top and offering her a lift.

"Sorry, only room for two," he smoothes, before revving his free'n'easy way into the sunset.

In Thelma and Louise, Louise's car is a whip-that-demi-wave cabriolet, its lack of roof showing a new-found freedom, an escape from domineering men, two women's ride into a wild, unattached life.

In Get Carter, the blond driving the soft-top Sunbeam indicates her sexually single status simply by being at the wheel of such a machine. Unfortunately, she dies in it, too - as, of course, do Thelma and Louise in their car.

But that says more about celluloid attitudes towards wayward women than it does about the joy of driving with the breeze in your hair.

I've owned five cars in my time, and four of them have had a tent as a top. As soon as I owned my first, a 19170 Peugeot 304, I knew I'd never again consider a solid-ceiling job - despite the rust, the mould and the ridicule inherent in a cabriolet, despite the hassle of putting the roof up and down.

Not even having my fingers locked frozen into a grip-shape over journeys that lasted little more than 15 minutes has changed my mind. Because a soft-top says glamour, and that's that, even if it does turn your hair into wire wool.

Luckily, over the past 10 years car manufacturers have cottoned on to the cabrio way of thinking. They've offered climate-resistant drivers more roofless beauties than ever and we've been treated to the Mazda MX5, the MGF, the Mercedes SLK, the BMW Z3, Honda S2000 and now Ford's Street Ka (only the hard-top Ka is sold in New Zealand).

The joys of convertible motoring encompass the sun, the wind, the view - not just of scenic mountains, but also the unrestricted vista around tricky corners during the school run. You get a sense of speed that just can't be realised in a hard-top. You get a sense of real driving, too, rare in these hermetically sealed days of air-conditioning, CD changers and whispering engines.

To your disadvantage, it makes you go deaf - and blind, if your wire-wool hair keeps whipping into your eyes. It's also much more tiring than cruising along in a sealed tin can.

That heightened sense of driving can make you scared: the road is close, hard, and whizzing past at an impossible gallop. And a soft-top's look-at-me sex appeal can easily be mistaken for swinishness. Or smugness.

Which brings me to the TT. I've driven a TT before, a hard-top, and remember it as a solid, masculine drive with room for two-and-a-half.

I took it camping, and locked the keys inside, thus testing its security, which was frustratingly fine. The soft-top version is, naturally, less secure - just stick a knife in the roof and away you go - but just as macho, though the one that arrived outside my front door lacked the previous version's red overstitching on the black leather seats (ooh, sir).

I think Audi's desire to make the TT a chap's car just makes it camper than Christmas - all those studded metal circles, the straighter-than-thou dashboard (no girly curves allowed), the firm but gentle feel of the knobs and buttons. The soft-top TT is a hairdresser's car, a divorcee's car, an A-Gay car. Looks pretty good on a girl, though.

And, shiver me Schumachers, it's fast. Not too frisky - still a solid drive - but when you get into sixth gear you can cruise on a cushion of air at more than 160 km/h.

I took it for a spin on the M40 motorway. "How fast do you think we're going?" I asked my companion.

He guessed about 120 k/mh. The dial said 80 k/mh more. Ha! Still, this was a test for singles rather than a check-your-internal-speedometer exercise, so I asked my companion if the TT ride made him, well, more interested than usual. He said: "Can I switch on the seat-heater?" A few minutes later, he said: "Mmm, yeah, maybe."

Such a reaction is to be expected when you're used to each other. So I thought I'd ask a genuine singleton what the TT can do. My flatmate took on the challenge and revved it to work, top down.

The reaction to this was varied and illuminating. The drivers of two different white vans called him a wanker and he was eyed by posh girls in Kensington. When he arrived at work, the security guard let him park right outside the office in a space usually banned when he was in his own 3-Series BMW.

During lunch, he took the opportunity of taking a young lady for a spin. Within five minutes she'd asked him to marry her.

- OBSERVER