In fact, it’s actually more manly than the
500 hatch, because, roof back, you can stand up in the driver’s seat, and
bumble down the road with your head craned over the top of the windscreen, like
a tank commander staring down the barrel of a rifle-gun at the battlefield
ahead. With the minor difference that, instead of being strafed by enemy
gunfire, the artillery barrage comes from airborne insects. And nothing says
“Grrr, I’m manly, me” like a wasp in the nostril.
Disadvantages against the 500 hatch? I’m
stumped. You get no less bootspace, no less handling fizz, and a little more of
the cheery putter from the TwinAir two-cylinder. True, with the roof in its
fully retracted position, rear visibility is broadly nonexistent. But, hey, who
needs to see what’s behind, anyhow? Don’t live in the past.
Once
you’re inside, the 435i Convertible starts to shine as it has one of the
nicest, user-friendly cabins in its class
And, OK, the 500C isn’t the most
testosterone-pumped of motors. But neither, be honest, is the 500 hatch. If
you’ve decided you need a bug-eyed Italian city car in your life, you’ve
already checked in your chest-hair at the door, whether you go hatch or cabrio.
Because you’re not a fair-trade Notting Hill cupcake merchant, maybe you’d
prefer the manly, rorty BMW 435i, and its manly, rorty straight-six engine and
rear-wheel drive. This engine, with the standard six-speed manual gearbox, is
one of the great drivetrains on the planet, a drivetrain made just a little
greater by removing the metal barrier between driver and the aural goodness of
that delicious 3.0-litre twin-turbo six.
The
cabin of the Continental GTC V8 S is just as you'd expect from Bentley –
refined and very comfortable
Even so, I will concede that, of this trio
of fine convertibles, the BMW is the most difficult to justify as a cabrio
without compromise. Because the 4-Series boasts a folding hard-top rather than
fabric roof, there is, admittedly, one small compromise to be made: bootspace.
At least it doesn’t boast the swollen-arse profile of hard-top cabs from a few
years back, but with the roof retracted, the 4’s trunk could reasonably be
described as boutique. There are, however, plenty of narrow apertures between
the roof’s lid layers, ideal for filing letters and tax returns and so forth.
But, that said, this is a 4-Series. You
don’t buy a 4-Series because you want to ferry two adults, a pair of children
and all their respective accoutrements to the south of France. That’s what the
3-Series estate, and Gran Turismo, and X3, and X4 are for. You buy a 4-Series to
transport two people and occasionally a bit of other stuff (luggage, kids,
whatever), and on that score the 4 cab is barely less practical than the 4
coupe. And besides, at least with the roof lowered, those rear-seat passengers
will have plenty of headroom.
Step
inside and the spacious, high quality cabin of the Fiat 500C Lounge Twin Air
still impresses
Less precise, more cumbersome than the 435i
hard-top? Maybe microscopically. But not much: BMW says the 4-Series cab is 80
per cent stiffer than the old 3-Series convertible. And to get too angsty about
a few microns of difference in the handling department seems, I fear, to
misunderstand what a 4-Series, or indeed any other modern
saloon-coupe-convertible- thing, will actually be used for. I’m well aware that
we have built an empire on sexy power sliding photos and devising countless
synonyms for “flailing over steer”, but really, even a 302bhp rear-driver like
the 435i just isn’t ever, in the real world, going to do that, is it?
