I wish I had the time to photoshop a proper drop top with the interior into it. I had a pretty hard think about what Melanie and Matt would want. It turned out to be pretty tricky because I figure Melanie would be pretty keen on a proper convertible, but that comes with extra weight and poorer handling. So I figured well what about a compact MR car except the engineering limits on a lightweight construction MR car are pretty harsh and the challenge limits are obviously geared to favour front-engined coupes (of which there aren’t many palatable to this particular period at this stage in the game). So then I had to figure out a way to get the right power to weight ratio without compromising the handling further, having tried everything from a 2.5L V6 to a 1.5L i4 with a lot of bells and whistles. In the end an 1800cc turbo i4 won: on low boost with an early spool it’s still more drivable and comfortable than going full Honda and having everything be gutless below 6k, right?
tl;dr I thought about this a lot. Let’s see if it pays off.