It seems that I have waited 63 years to get my very first convertible. I am astonished at how easy it is to get that top up and down. Literally ten seconds or less to get it down; perhaps 15 seconds to get it up, since you must allow a few more to raise the windows. How do the other roadsters (Boxster, Z3, Miata et al, err,... add also the VW Cabrio) compare for ease of raising/lowering? I have no experience with them.

 

I'm not yet an S2k owner (it's on its way), but here's what I've picked up on the topic: The S2K's top drops in about 6 seconds, which is almost 1/2 of the Boxter, M Roadster, & Trans Am & maybe is the fastest of all. I understand the time to raise is longer, though, around 10 secs? MR2s and Miatas are manual, but quick as well - just no motor to assist. The Corvette is much longer, as you have to get out & manually raise/lower, but it's a neat mechanism- just should be powered for the price, imho.

 

The miatas manual top can be raised and lowered a bit quicker.

 

I order to compleat the process you must get out of car and install boot cover. It takes about a 1 to 2 minuets. Lucky Boxster owners don't have to do this to have there car look compleat.

 

co-worker has a boxster S. While leaving the office, we both drop the top down. He had about a 2 second head start. Both finished at the same time. You can say its faster by about 2 seconds.

 

And they also don't have to stop first. We had a Miata along on one of the Bay Area drives a few weeks back and after the rain cleared up he dropped his top while still moving about 10 mph while I had to wait for the next full stop so I could put the parking brake on first.

That's the only thing about the Miata that I like better, though.

 

Does anyone actually ever put the boot on? I put mine in the closet. I'd sell it if I though I could get any money for it.

Robin.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by fieryermine
[B]Does anyone actually ever put the boot on? I put mine in the closet. I'd sell it if I though I could get any money for it.

 

Hey! I'll buy your boot for $50. Mine stays on all the time since I never put the top up. I'm sure I'll scuff it or something so sell me yours . . .

 

My Miata I could put that top down while cruising (it was that easy) so props to Miata for making the manual about a 3-second exercise. No parking brake shin-dig to worry about there. The MR2 Spyder I owned was the cleanest design, since dropping the top automatically created the boot (or rather, eliminated the need for one). Very ingenius design. My Z3 was on par with the S2K so I'm not sure if there is any real difference there. I think for the most part, ragtops all come down using the same basic principals now. The Benz and SC430 are the tops in my opinion though....that concept would work awesome up here for an S2K (Vermont) but probably wouldn't be worth the added weight of the unit.