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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Brendan O'Connor on RTE Radio 1.
Paddy Cummin, Head of Automotive Content at Dundee. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Paddy, we're going to take a few minutes to talk about the divine madness and the romance of convertibles. Tell me about the first time you were in a convertible.
Oh, 1990. My father, Pat, Sunday Independent Motoring correspondent, arrived at the school with a Mazda MX-5 and it made a huge impact. It was a beautiful moment and the start of really a love affair with convertibles. I've never owned one, but I always admired the people who have the sort of
Chapter 2: What makes driving a convertible in Ireland a unique experience?
optimism to drive one.
Yeah, because it is, buying a convertible in Ireland is on the face of it a daft idea. So is it an act of optimism, you think?
Yeah, I mean, look, an average of about 125 people a year across 10 years have bought one. Is that all? Yeah. Yeah, sometimes the number's been, in the madness of the Celtic Tiger, we were selling a lot more. They were up north to 300. But no, it's shrinking and it's shrinking a lot.
We, you know, on Doneal Cars, we would see now the numbers of classifieds have shrunk by 66% over the last couple of years.
Chapter 3: How did the host's childhood influence his love for convertibles?
So that... So they really have dropped away. But those people who love them, I think I have to tip my hat to them admiring them because, look, Irish weather is flaky at best. And you get a day like today, which is beautiful. But yeah, those people who do choose one get a really nice experience because they get something which feels very close to the road.
It gives them a sense of almost like being on a motorbike. It's a really sort of a... open and lovely experience.
Now, you do in Ireland have to reconcile yourself to the fact that if you're driving a convertible, I had them before we had kids. I had a few old ones. What did you have? So initially I had a Golf. Then I had a beautiful Saab, right? I gave it away for four grand. And I did think at the time, if I could hold on to this and put it somewhere, I'd be glad of it in years to come.
What happened was we came out of Hollis Street with Anne, I remember. And I said to... Sarah, look, we can work this out, OK? All you need to do is put the roof down, which was kind of manual, mostly at the time. Put the roof down, put the car seat into the back because there were no back doors and then put the roof back up. So it's fine. We can do this.
And she said, go ahead and buy a proper car, you fool. So that was the end of my days. But you do have to reconcile yourself with the fact that you're driving along and that most people are going to look at that tosser now.
Well, it's that Irish thing of notions as well, when people buy them. And I think, look, it was a Celtic Tiger thing around that time, especially when Saab were at their full pump, they were really selling quite well. And it was a bit of a mark that you'd arrived to a degree if you had a convertible, but that's been replaced by SUVs.
SUVs are seen now as luxury, not even, you know, we don't even see the typical luxury cars anymore. It's all Range Rovers.
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Chapter 4: Why do so few people buy convertibles in Ireland?
Yeah. So yeah, the EVs, are they making convertibles, EV companies? Not really. You don't see them, do you? There's MG have a thing called the Cyberster, but the problem with electric vehicles is that you're sitting on the batteries. So they all inherently sit quite high up. So that's why you see so many SUV EVs. So it's very hard to have a low down EV.
So we're probably not going to see a huge amount of them in the future.
So you think it could be dying out, yeah?
Well, it does appear to be. I mean, obviously, at the very high end, there's still cars. You know, we have a car on our site that's half a million euro today, a Ferrari. So at the high end, those cars still exist.
You'd pick up a normal one cheap, though, wouldn't you?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the range, you could pick up a car for a few hundred euro, of course. But for people who are thinking of buying one, the Mazda MX-5 is still king. If you've never driven one, absolutely brilliant car. That's a small little Mazda.
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Chapter 5: What are the practical challenges of owning a convertible in Ireland?
It's a car which, you know, and I talked about the 1990 one. It's a car which has obviously changed, but the essence of it hasn't changed over the years. So if someone wanted a classic one, they can get them pretty cheap. Even if they want a reasonably modern one, you're not going to spend a huge amount of money for them. But a lovely experience. And on a day like today, I mean, it's worth it.
Yeah. Yeah. And even if it's not quite like today, like people generally drive around with the heat on. Did you drive it with the roof down in winter? Well, not quite in winter, but on a day when it might be bright and sunny. You put on the heat and you're grand. Yeah. And come here. What's the time of year now? Is this the time of year when people are having that act of optimism?
Yeah, May is the busiest time for us in terms of convertibles. And obviously January in new cars is the time when everyone buys them. So January is the biggest year for new car sales. But no, May is the time. And now we see a huge spike in people searching for them. And when will they come back then? Probably October.
So most people have a short honeymoon with them and then go, yeah, I've had that for a bit longer.
But generally, you'll see a spike in May when people say, right, I'm going to have that experience. Yeah.
Would you agree it's an act of grand madness that everybody should probably do once in their life?
Beautiful. And look, we always have, you know, you think of Thelma and Louise and films like that. It's always been that romantic notion of driving a convertible. And someone, everyone should experience it at some stage in their life, even if it's on holiday when they rent a car. But it's a lovely experience and I'd encourage it.
Yeah. OK, Paddy Cummin, Head of Automotive Content and Communications at Dundee. Thank you. We'll take a break.
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