Openmeter: a new gauge on the new Mini ragtop

[mdsalemi]

Has anyone noticed that there is this new [optional] gauge on the Mini ragtop (no joke; google it and you'll see) called the Openmeter?

It tracks the amount of time you drive with the top down.

I don't know if this is relevant information without also including total time.

Maybe we need one of those

[Peter van Es]

Interesting. As one of those people that tries to drive top-down whatever the weather, even if it is a manual procedure for our cars, I am always amazed at the number of people driving convertibles with the top up, even if it is not raining and they have an electric opening mechanism.

That's I'm sure why the mini needs an Openmeter... to remind the driver that the roof can actually fold down!

Peter

[mdsalemi]

Precisely Peter!  In the review in Automobile (US) this month, apparently the "reveal" to the media of the Mini ragtop was done NOT on a sunny beach in Italy or the Riviera, but in the middle of winter in the Austrian Alps!  They encouraged top-down driving in that weather, and that's what the auto writers did!  So far only in the print edition...

[Mike Hughes]

For about 30 years I have been driving my wife crazy because I insist that the only time a convertible top should be up is if it is actualy raining while I am actually driving!  That's why you see so many pictures of my Pagoda with the hardtop fitted - she won't let me take it off these days except in the heat of Summer!

[Cees Klumper]

The first year I lived in Florida, after moving there from cold and rainy Holland, I went to the beach quite often, including in winter. But after a few years and having become a Florida Native, I started going to to the beach much less often; in wintertime I wouldn't go at all. Then the last couple of years of Florida living (always close to the beach mind you: Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Jupiter, Palm Beach) I don't think I went to the beach even once.

The story repeats itself because when I bought my current daily driver (a Volvo C70 convertible) I drove it top-down often. Now I can't remember the last time I did that, and decided my next daily driver will not be a convertible. Oh, and I just took the Pagoda for a drive and even though it was not very cold out, I drove with the (hard) top on.

But I do always thoroughly enjoy driving top-down in the Pagoda, if only for the great exhaust note and for the fact that the regular mechanical noises dissapear from the cabin ...

Maybe an interesting poll would be to see what percentage of the time we all guesstimate (because we don't have this openmeter widget) we drive top-down vs top-up (hard and soft). In my case, that percentage would be around 10 I am afraid.

[tuultyme]

I remember back in 1998 my wife and I took our daughter out to Colorado to check out a college in October.  We took a side trip up to Estes Park.  We took a ride out to Bear Lake with the top down; Chrysler Sybring.  It snowed!  It was the most enjoyable drive!  My Pagoda is currently in the garage with the hard top on waiting for Spring. 

[Peter van Es]

The poll as requested by Cees is added. Please vote to see the results!

Peter

[mdsalemi]

But after a few years and having become a Florida Native, I started

Cees, you can never "become" a native of anywhere; you are a native of where you were born, or at least lived your formative years (such as if you had moved to FL when you were 6 months old and did not move away for some years after that).  When I lived in California as a transplant for a year, I was often reminded of that by the bumper stickers that the natives had reading "California Native".  While there are all kinds of these now for nearly every place you can proudly call yourself a native from (at least in the USA), at that time there was only one: it mimicked the then license plate with the setting sun behind the state name.  http://www.aaroads.com/license_plates/images/ca-2flt842.jpg  I'm sure our California members remember these bumper stickers; it's so old now I can't find an image of it.  It isn't as xenophobic as Colorado's "No Vacancy" bumper stickers, or similar ones from Oregon, but nonetheless it sent a message.

Assuming you were indeed born in the Netherlands (or at least in one of its "colonies") you are a native Netherlander.  No matter how long you lived in Florida, you were only a transplant.  Also assuming you didn't give up your Netherlands citizenship, you were merely a guest to boot!

Hey, you can make your own!  Autochtone Nederlander in Delft Blue, or with an image of all those narrow A'dam homes, a dazzling array of tulips, etc.

 

[Cees Klumper]

Haha Mike, I know about the formal rules vis-a-vis 'nativity' but since almost nobody I knew who lived in Florida lived there for as long as I did (this was the 80-ies and early 90-ies, maybe things are different there today) I decided that Florida was an exception to those rules and I could consider myself a native after almost 10 years. Plus Florida was (maybe still is) the melting pot of the US which is already a melting pot to start with, so 'melting pot squared'. But of course I am formally a native of Europe, from the state of The Netherlands (or, as our old friend Achim once put it, "European, of German descent").

Let me complete the poll next ...