Ragtop’s Roadrage

Ragtops

Originally a ragtop was a synonym for a convertible; a slang term that referred to any car with a cloth top that could be folded down. The convertible era in the US reached peaked in the 1950s before air conditioning became a common fixture in modern cars.

Although there have always been a few new convertibles produced every year, sales declined steadily and significantly until 1990 when Mazda introduced the Miata/MX5 - a tiny fun to drive 2 seat convertible with roadster style and Japanese reliability at a price that almost anyone could afford.

Today true ‘cloth tops’ are disappearing again since the technology required to make a hardtop that folds away into the trunk is now inexpensive enough to use on even affordable cars.

Roadsters

The Miata’s sales success sparked a crowd of competitors from Europe, America, and Japan - the Audi TT, BMW Z3 and Z4, Porsche Boxster, Chrysler Crossfire, Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, Honda S2000, Toyota MR2, and Nissan 350Z are all called modern roadsters, are all influenced by the Miata.

Originally a ‘roadster’ was a lightweight, front engine, rear wheel drive, two seat convertible car: a purist’s sports car, epitomized by the British sports cars of the 1950s that didn’t even have side windows to keep the rain out. Even today, a sports car purist’s definition is ‘no roof, no back seat, no trunk, no automatic transmission, and no damn cupholders’, but today a roadster is mostly a marketing term for any sporty two seater - ‘T’ tops and fastbacks with automatic transmissions, air conditioning, and power everything are called roadsters, to the annoyance of the above purists.

Hot Rods

A hot rod is a custom car, built for speed. The term and the attitude of the owners dates from the same time frame as the ‘roadster’ but is even more extreme.

These cars were commonly built from the late 1940s, through the 1950s, and up to the early 1960s (the era when the big V8 powered ‘muscle cars’ like the GTO, Mustang, and Camaro became production cars that anyone could buy without knowing how to weld).

A hot rod was built from salvaged parts.The owner / builder would tear the roof, hood, bumpers, fenders, and original windshield off an old Ford from the 1930s or 1940s to reduce the weight, install a large, powerful engine and heavy duty transmission, lower the chassis and add fat tires for more traction, and add a wild paint job.

They were built for drag racing and very dangerous on the street. Wally Parks formed The NHRA - the National Hot Rod Association - to get the racing off the streets and onto the tracks and succeeded in saving a lot of lives. In the 1970s hot rods became commercialized as ‘Steet Rods’ made for looks not speed became popular, and today the look lives on in the Plymouth Prowler.