HomeCar CultureLifestyleGoing topless in Boca

Going topless in Boca

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(Editor’s note: Yesterday, Larry Printz provided overall coverage of the Boca Raton concours. Today, Jim McCraw focuses on vehicles in which you can enjoy the sun in the Sunshine State.)

The 12th annual Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance, held at one of the most elegant hotels in America, is the only concours in the country owned and operated by a charity, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Broward County.

At this year’s event, where I was honored once again to be among the judges, I found a whole field full of roadsters, convertibles, cabriolets, touring cars and others that were the perfect rides for Florida in the winter.

This story could have been titled something else, like “Cars We’d Love To Roll Up To The Hotel Valet In With The Top Down,” because that’s how I felt about nearly all of these entries, but that woulda been kinda long.

Florida, where cool car events happen almost every weekend,
is now the third-largest state in the Union measured by population and influence, and second only to California in its variety of car culture. This is where top-down motoring has thrived since the beginning of automobiles, and the field at Boca Raton was full of beauties with cloth tops, removable tops, or no tops.

From the humble, goofy land-and-water utility of the Amphicar to the overstated pomp of a 1913 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost with cut-crystal lamp glass, the field of topless cars at Boca Raton was even better than we expected.

Jim McCraw
Jim McCraw
Jim McCraw has been writing about cars, motorcycles, design, technology, car people and racing for 50 years, in such publications as Hot Rod Deluxe, Super Chevy, Muscle Mustangs, Road & Track, Car and Driver, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Penthouse, Winding Road, The Mercedes-Benz Star, AutoWeek, The New York Times, and a number of European publications. He was executive editor of Motor Trend, editor of Hot Rod and Super Stock. He co-holds the record for the drive from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Key West, Florida, 96:22, and has run in major events such as the Mille Miglia Storica in Italy, Goodwood, the California Mille, the Colorado Grand, the New England 1000, Forza Mille, and four One Lap Of America competitions He owns a pristine Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan.

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