Mustang convertible same as ever -- no-frills fun and power

When it comes to driving a convertible, few cars offer as much good old-fashioned fun as the Mustang.

	2003 Ford Mustang. The Bottom Line -- GT Convertible Premium. Price: $32,620. Fuel economy: 17 city, 24 highway. Powertrain: 4.6-liter V-8 with an automatic overdrive transmission.

It's all there -- and almost all good: charisma, a healthy dollop of American flavor, strong performance and a decent price.

You jump in, turn the key, drop the top and hit the pedal. No fancy stuff to worry about such as navigation systems and gee-whiz techno stuff. Mustang's about honest-to-goodness, down-home driving pleasure, nothing more and nothing less.

One more thing: If you can get by with a regular Mustang Convertible and pass up the GT, you'll find a pleasant surprise on the sticker. Prices start at $24,080 base convertible, nicely equipped.

Our traveling companion, however, was a bright yellow 2003 Mustang GT convertible, equipped with a 4.6-liter 260-horsepower V-8 that delivers plenty of stump-pulling torque.

The base price of $28,670 for this one is just a bit over our $25,000 limit for "Wallet Watchers." But with year-end clearance sales coming, along with rebate and incentive programs, you might find yourself coming awfully close to that $25,000 figure.

The Mustang convertible looks good in red.

When you get behind the wheel of the GT convertible, you notice the "rumpa rumpa" sound of the huge V-8, and you can almost sense this car swaggering down the street in a muscular, quaking kind of way.

As you idle at a light, you can feel all that power vibrating right underneath your backside.

I'm not saying there aren't faster cars around. There are even some faster Mustangs out there -- the SVT Cobra versions and the special Saleen models.

But the GT sure puts on a darn good show, and I think for most folks who aren't absolutely out of their minds with speed craving, it will be plenty fast.

As for the ride, you feel everything this car is doing. The suspension is obviously set up for performance driving, and hitting a pothole or two will really shake things up with a pretty solid whump.

But that's part of the authentic American pony car experience. You don't expect, or want a marshmallow when you're driving one of this things. It is what is.

You sit low in the comfortable leather bucket seats, and the view out the windshield is pretty phenomenal. There's that huge, all-business hood scoop up front. It gives you the feeling that this baby is packed with power and ready to pounce on its next victim.

As you might expect, the Mustang GT is happiest when it's hitting a nice stretch of highway that allows you to open it up. You'll hear a deep, throaty, burbling moan that rises and gets more pronounced as you pick up speed.

Problems? Trunk space is limited, but you expected that. The top release handles can be a chore to operate -- it takes some tugging to disengage the mechanisms when you're lowering the top. Raising it also will mean some tugging on the top's forward edge to line it up well enough to lock.

I also wasn't crazy about the power seat button location, though I understand why they put it on the front of the seat. There's not enough room between the driver door and the seat to get your fingers down there to operate a button located on the traditional side of the seat bolster, so they moved it up to the front of the seat.

But the one thing that really drove me batty was the lack of any night lights for the top button, the door handle and the window buttons -- a real time waster when you have to grope for everything.

Be all that as it may, I still loved the Mustang, and like many boomers, I probably always will. Give me a big ol' shakin', quakin' GT Convertible any day of the week, the last of the gizmo-free thrill rides left these days.