Driving Impressions: 2005 Ford Mustang convertible

Photo courtesy Ford Motor Company.

[Editor's Note: About 10 years ago, Jeff Koch wrote up a number of articles and driving impressions for then-new performance vehicles that, for some reason or another, never made it into the pages of Hemmings Muscle Machines as intended. As those vehicles now march toward collectible status, we've decided to take another look at them through Jeff's reviews.]

The idea behind many sporty convertibles sounds good in theory, but often these cars trip over their own ears in practice. For us, "sporty" is defined more in attitude than in looks alone, and part of that sporting intent is cornering as well as all-out acceleration. Sporty turning generally means a stiffened-up suspension, which, when you rip the roof off a unibody car, means that the body itself has more give than the suspension. It makes for a singularly unpleasant driving experience. Car companies often give their convertibles lip service - "developed in conjunction with the coupe," or some such nonsense - but in most cases, no matter how much extra body reinforcements are added, it just feels like an afterthought, and dynamically they suffer. Ever been in a fourth-gen F-body convertible? Yikes. Leave the droptops to bespoke roadsters, like Miatas and such, keep 'em luxury-oriented like the terminally soft, rental-fleet-favorite Chrysler Sebring, or else put 'em on a full frame. Sometimes, like with the Chevrolet SSR, that doesn't even help.

You've already read our thoughts on the driveline of the new Mustang; nothing has changed for the convertible at all in this regard. Still needs more torque, or at least placed lower in the rev range, and despite a vastly improved driving position, the interior still looks far cooler than it feels. Cutting the roof off a 2005 Mustang doesn't affect any of these things - the extra 175 pounds of reinforcement barely weighs down on the drivetrain, though it takes an extra five grand out of your wallet in exchange (a Mustang GT starts at pocket change under thirty large). Instead, we concentrated on the ride/handling quotient, fully expecting the lack of a top to make the chassis limp and lifeless.

Ford decided to launch the Mustang convertible on the California coastline a day in advance of the Los Angeles Auto Show - just the ticket for hordes of freezing journalists who regularly travel the Detroit beat. Alas, the drive itself was threatened with rain the entire day; Malibu was considering falling into the ocean following the Christmas tsunami, taking our (abbreviated) drive route with it, and so top-up driving was the wisest course of action. Unswayed by the breeze in our hair, we could concentrate on the chassis through the hills in Malibu.

Company reps were quite proud that the coupe and convertible were developed concurrently - red flag time. But the truth is, had you not told us this was a convertible, had we not seen the power-operated soft-top as we stepped into it, fiddled with the buttons and such, we wouldn't have guessed that it was a soft-top. It feels that tight, that solid. Chassis flex? Banished. Steering column doing the samba over bumps? Vamoose. Of course, these were early production models (our triple-digit-serial-number model had covered less than 400 miles when we slipped in), so things could loosen up over time, and of course we didn't put ourselves in danger by sliding off the wet mountain roads, but over bumps and ruts, the coupe-like solidity happily surprised us. We can pay it no higher compliment.

A large part of this has to do with the top: It's triple-layered, admirably filtering both wind and road noise. Unique A-pillars that help move the wind are part of the package; even the shape of the back seat has been tailored to reduce cabin buffeting. Best of all, press a button and within 17 seconds, there's no top at all. Ford claims an extra two inches of headroom in front over the previous convertible (feels like more than that) and more than an inch in back, which needs all the help it can get.

Still, five grand is a stiff hit for an option that, while nice, arguably doesn't make the car any better. To its credit, it doesn't subtract anything either. But is the sunshine worth that much to you?