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Ed has observed of Speedster driving,
“It feels wrong and dangerous and foolhardy and cramped and uncomfortable and loud and loud…”
But Benjamin tells us,
“…I want this car to be a driver that will replace my motorcycle addiction…”
So Benjamin, you may have what it takes. Motorcycles are wrong and dangerous and cramped and uncomfortable and loud, but motorcyclists don’t seem to care, either. They’re after that raw, unfettered, bugs in your face freedom that cars mostly can’t deliver. And our Speedsters are often said to be closer to motorcycles than to regular cars.
But then, there’s the matter of Tampa.
You’re asking for the raw of a Speedster AND, at the push of a button, immunity from the forces of nature. The opportunity for disappointment is vast.
As Ed also notes, we each must come to an uneasy truce with our Speedsters. The car has its ways and can’t be sweet-talked out of them. We’re the ones who must adjust if the union is to endure.
I live in a place also famous for its heat and have worked out ways of dealing with that. For me, it’s an open car and more than half of the ‘experience’ is going top down. I rarely bother putting the top up. If it’s raining, I don’t go. If it’s a hot day, I choose the coolest hours to drive.
But there’s Sacramento heat and there’s Tampa heat, as detailed here:
By the numbers, our hottest months are even hotter than Tampa. The difference, (and we’ll leave out matters of humidity) is that on even our hottest days, it’s usually about 35 degrees cooler the night before. We have a ‘magic time’, for about four hours just after sunrise, when temps are good for a top-down drive with no need for A/C. So, in the summer, that’s when I drive. After that, I park the car and call it a day. In Tampa, at sunrise it's typically already almost 80 degrees (with that unmentionable humidity). No magic time.
But there’s also the matter of rain. For about half the year here, there’s virtually no chance of rain. So, I can pretty much take off on any of those summer mornings without worrying about the sky. Or plan a week-long getaway of a few hundred miles without ever needing a top.
But, Tampa is different:
Your worst months for heat are also your worst months for rain. You get as much rain in July and August as we do all year. On average, it rains almost every other day then.
So, I’m thinking, if I were in Tampa, I’d seriously consider having a removable hardtop and just leaving that on in the middle of summer. The soft top is a bit of a job to put up and stow (there's the matter of the tonneau cover, too) and not as waterproof as a hardtop. In a sudden summer thunderstorm, you’d be soaked before you got the top up and not really dry even after you did.
It’s something to think about. Hardtops must be custom fitted to each car individually. They’re not cheap, and I don’t know if Carey’s even making them in the crunch of their current workload, but it’s something you should at least be asking him about.
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