Roadster definition per Road & Track dictionary:

"A two-door open type body often confused with a convertible coupe. Traditionally, a roadster had side curtains rather than roll-down windows and often a soft top that was not permanently attached to the body nor folded into a stowage well. Traditional British roadsters often employ a tonneau for full or partial cockpit protection in wet weather.

Today, the term is more widely applied and includes two-seat convertibles with roll-down windows."

 

[QUOTE=exceltoexcel,Apr 12 2005, 04:13 PM] Like I said it's because we let stupid foreigners in consistently that they have now spread there ignorance like this tool.

 

I'm sure not Road and Track is a definitive guide to the English language

I think it means what you think it means.

The concept of a roadster goes way back to the 20's. It was a car with 2 seats, few features (including a roof) and possibly a set of rumble seats in the back for the odd extra passenger or two. This concept of a stripped down, lean and mean machine led to hot rodding. A roadster is also considered a sports car and vice versa. The brits didn't invent it. It's the 20th century version of a chariot as compared to a coach. No frills, no creature comforts, no luggage space. Just a striped down automobile designed to drive for fun. Yes you can make a coupe into a roadster. Just remove the back seats, the roof, the vanity mirror and all the other crap from it and presto. If its got 4 doors or most importantly a lid it ain't a roadster. It can have more than 2 seats. It can have one if it's a bench seat or it can have 3 if it has a rumble seat in the back.

That's what I think it means so that's what it means to me.

 

Also, allow me to pick up my stick and warn everyone that if this hostility continues I'm going to beat someone with it.

Seriously, if you can't have a mature civilized exchange of opinion without resorting to crude, rude and nasty remarks then you leave me no choice but to hurt you. Discuss whatever you want but be adults or go visit disney.com's forums instead. s2ki is for adults only (real or pretend). If you can't fake it, fake off.

Cheers.

 

Thank God for that!

They've run a "history of convertibles" on the Discovery Channel a couple of times. According to the show, a "roadster" originally was, as Cthree points out, a bare bones, no frills car. "If" it had a top, it didn't have windows. If it had windows, they were only the plastic snap in kind. The "last" thing a roadster was, was dry! By that definition, none of the car's we're talking about are roadsters.

They're "convertibles," not roadsters. Of course, our language is alive. It changes with time and definitions often shift as they obviously have in this case.

FWIW!
Drive Safe,
Steve R.

 

Having owned a true roadster - one with removable side curtains - for more than 30 years, I don't need anyone to explain what one is to me. I provided the R&T definition to point out how the term has been bastardized to include any number of cars including the S2000. Cheers.

 

I can remember riding around in old Triumph TR3's with my Dad when I was a kid. Top up, side curtains snapped in place, and a nice rain made for the first shower I ever had in my life. We didn't have one in the house (only a tub), but the car wasn't bad under the right circumstances!

Drive Safe,
Steve R.

 

I honestly haven't met or heard of anyone else who thinks that "roadster" and "sports car" have mutually exclusive definitions, now or at any time in the past. I'm willing to entertain the possibility, though ... have you met other such people?

Regarding the Boxster S, the current one looks pretty good but earlier years looked rather ... idiosyncratic, at least from the front. I'm still working on telling them apart from the rear.

 

I guess one other side to this is that the term "roadster" won't die with the original definition of the car.

as far as I know, it seems there are few and far between left of what was originally considered a roadster, and obviously none are in production anymore. So maybe as a natural part of evolution, the cars that most closely resemble the old roadsters simply take the term along with it, rather than let the roadster die completely.

Just my .02

 

by this definition, "A two-door open type body often confused with a convertible coupe. Traditionally, a roadster had side curtains rather than roll-down windows and often a soft top that was not permanently attached to the body nor folded into a stowage well. Traditional British roadsters often employ a tonneau for full or partial cockpit protection in wet weather"


My jeep wrangler with the back seat out would qualify as a roadster, but whatever