A high performance, fast convertible is probably one of the most luxuriously impractical automotive purchases anyone can ever make. After all, for many enthusiastic drivers, an exceptionally powerful engine is just as much of a luxury as lamb’s wool carpeting, a nineteen-speaker stereo system, or a suede headliner. When ultra-high performance is combined with the ultimate in devil-may-care motoring—a convertible roof—being seen in a truly fast droptop says to the world, “Yeah, I have money to burn, and check me out, y’all, I’m burning it faster than you can earn it, right now.”
You see, a convertible is the most impractical choice of what many would consider the most impractical type of car. Think about it, if you really wanted the ultimate top speed model of any given car, just to have the ultimate top speed version of the car, you’d buy the hardtop iteration of that car. After all, logic would render the soft top a diametrically opposed choice if ultimate performance were the primary goal. Convertible roofs inherently induce more drag into a given design, making that model slower than its hardtop counterpart. Plus, anyone who has ever driven a convertible with the top down at over 100 miles per hour will tell you there are a lot quieter and more comfortable ways to get from Atlanta to Boston. In a convertible, wind buffeting at triple digit speeds, even with the windows up and a wind blocker in place can be quite extraordinary. Assuming, of course you care one whit about practicality.
With that said, and given all the cars on this list of the 10 fastest convertibles are easily capable of exceeding 150 miles per hour (many of them even approach 200), odds are they won’t do it often. Thus, a super high performance convertible represents the ultimate in impracticality and therefore luxury. Insanely expensive, outrageously capable and seldom employed to its true potential; if that doesn’t describe an ultimate luxury item, please tell us what does.