More often than most road testers would care to admit, what they have to say has precious little bearing on the sales success of a car. And rarely is this better illustrated than with Volkswagen's Beetle Cabriolet ($36,990).
A heart-over-head choice if ever there was one, this is the sort of car that's all about making some sort of indiscernible statement that, ultimately, only professes a broad disregard for the basic requirements of modern motoring in favour of looking like whatever you think you look like in the campest car on the market.
But you can't help but be positive when you see someone trundling around in one, because you know they're probably dead happy with it, regardless.
Unless they're plagued by those blind spots; great swathes of black hole big enough to swallow buses and buildings as you try in vain to reverse or change lanes with a modicum of security.
Or they are dreading the prospect of tackling a narrow street; the hopeless indecision of the steering threatening to bounce them off parked cars all the way down it like a zig-zagging drunk.
But the truth is that buyers of the new Beetle Cabriolet probably won't even notice.
They'll see the chrome inserts on the revised interior, maybe the sharpened edges to the wheelarches. And they'll see that the roof comes off and there's still a flower vase on the dash.
Matt Master
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