Drive a convertible? Don't be afraid...

DID you know that we Brits buy more open-top sports cars than the French, the Germans and the Spanish put together?

Racy roadsters are big business these days, so I was glad to get taken for a spin last week in one of my favourite British sports cars; Mazda's MX-5. I appreciate that it's actually made by robots in Hiroshima, but in terms of its concept it's about as English as cramming sausages, bacon and eggs onto the same plate.

I like the little MX-5 a lot - and given that it's the world's best-selling roadster, so do lots of you - but the whole wind/hair experience got shattered by one of my co-driver's comments. As much as we both love the MX-5, he reckoned it made us look like a gay couple.

Why? I've got lots of gay friends, and as far as I know, none of them drive MX-5s, or any other convertible for that matter. Yet it's still one of the most tired clichés in the motoring world.

Top Gear viewers probably remember a piece a few years ago trying to find the manliest sports car (Triumph TR6, if anyone's wondering) but I really don't know why anyone actually cares. I know convertible connoisseurs often care more for image than engineering, but how can a car possibly reveal anything about your sexual orientation?

I love open-top sports cars for the traditional thrills they give you, so the last thing on my mind is whether I look like a prat or not. As long as your choice of wheels does what you want it to and keeps you happy, even in a humdrum, it-gets-me-to-the-shops sort of way, surely that's all that matters.

There's been lots of occasions when I've actually looked at getting one of the original MX-5s outside my home, and that's simply because I think it's a cheap car that'll give you a thrilling time on a country lane without breaking down, and not because of how it looks or what it says about me.

My girlfriend, I reckon, probably agrees with me.