I've owned 9 Convertibles - AI Ranks them

[maz8062]

Happy New year all

I'm a roadster chap - I love them, so over the years I've owned 9 and still have one today. Given the chance, as long as it is dry, the roof is down on mine.

I asked AI to rank them, and this is what they came up with. Interestingly, the rankings were uniform across various AI platforms, so I guess this is how the internet views these cars:

1. MY06 997.1 C2S Cab
2. MY00 Honda S2000
3. MY03 Boxster S
4. MY90 Mazda MX-5 1.6
5. MY05 SLK 55 AMG
6. MY05 BMW Z4 3.0i manual
7. MY16 SLK 350
8. MY12 SLK 200
9. MY91 Maserati Biturbo Spyder.

Obviously, I disagreed and ranked them as follows:

1. SLK 55
2. MX5
3. Maserati Spyder
4. Porsche 911 C2S
5. BMW Z4 3.0i
6. Honda S2000
7. Porsche Boxster
8. SLK 350
9. SLK 200

AI summarised my choices as
- loving engine-led joy
- I don't mind flawed dynamics if the reward is immediate
- I enjoy cars that make me laugh out loud.

Notable comments include:
On the Boxster: Technically excellent, emotionally strained.
On the Maserati: You're rewarding romance and theatre, not reliability.
On the 911: Respected, but not worshipped.
On the SLK 55: This screams "cars are meant to make you grin"

I thought I'd share.

Edited by maz8062 on Thursday 1st January 10:27

[macron]

Be interesting to ask the follow up question of what criteria they all used!

I've found AI st for say, 'raw' logo design, but ask it to make a brief for a logo designer, tweak the brief, send the brief back through, much better!

And yes SLK55, how is an 03 Boxster (even the 3.2) better than that...

[595Heaven]

I’ve had four convertibles

Rover 216 Convertible - was a company car. Masses of a Tuttle shake, a terribly small boot, and whilst it had a powered roof, you had to unclip the header rails fixings manually, and wind down the rear side windows manually before raising or lowering. Some good memories of it - was the car I had when we got married, and we had some fun trips unit to Cornwall and driving through central London on a hot summer night

Caterham Seven 1.8 - built a kit which was delivered when my son was three months old. Kept it for 12 years and did about 22k miles in it. Was always my dream to build it, and I loved it

Mazda MX5 1.8 NC ‘Kuro Edition’ - just didn’t ever gel with it. Felt dog slow and it went after about six months

Mercedes AMG SLK55 - an absolute beast of a car, with a fabulous sounding engine. Had secondary cats removed so was far louder than stock

In order:

Joint 1st - Caterham and SLK55
Distant joint 3rd place - MX5 and Rover