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(Enlarge photo)
Four luscious cars, a beautiful road along the coast of the Pacific. Sometimes you just can't ask for more in life.
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Road Test: Comparison Test
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2002 Luxury Convertibles Under $55,000 Comparison Test
Cars with a View
By
Liz Kim
Date posted: 06-18-2002
A beautiful mid-spring week with not a cloud in the sky. A driving route that
hugs the cliffs and precipices along the coast of Central California. Four luxurious
convertibles, five Edmunds.com editors and four days to enjoy them. And if that
weren't enough, consider the evening the editors jumped into a hotel hot tub.
If you've ever wondered what it's like to share lukewarm water with half-naked
coworkers, well, let's just say that it was an experience to remember.
Assembled for participation in the test were a bevy of top-down beauties including
the 2002 versions of the BMW
330Ci, Ford Thunderbird,
Saab
9-3 Viggen and Volvo C70. Three
of the four are natural competitors, being of European heritage and of the four-seater
variety, but we thought that we'd throw in a brash American roadster just for
fun. Also interesting is the engine mix; with a forced-induction inline four and
inline five, a normally aspirated inline six and a V8 powerplant, we wondered
whether the V6 went the way of the dodo. OK, we originally had a Mercedes-Benz
CLK 320 as a contestant of this group; however, on the way to the sleepy little
beach town of Cambria, an unfortunate collision with a deer took the vehicle out
of the running (never fear, we'll see a new CLK for the 2003 year). We would also
have liked to include the Audi A4 Cabriolet, but its fall release precluded its
use in this springtime test.
We ran the convertibles through our usual battery of performance tests, a 23-point
evaluation process, an analysis of the features that we consider most vital, price
comparisons and, of course, the highly subjective editors' recommended and personal
picks. We drove them in various road and traffic conditions, took them home to
be oohed and aahed over by friends and family members and poked and prodded them
with impunity.
Read on to see how the cars placed; by virtue of this being a comparison test,
we had a winner and our favorite. If you're a loyal Edmunds.com fan, the winner
will come as little surprise, although some of us were caught unawares by the
placement of the rest. But we found that no one had a single complaint about having
taken a few days to drive them on Pacific Coast Highway between Cambria and Big
Sur. If you ever get the chance to do so, we don't think you'll have any complaints,
either.
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