Right on the nail Mark.
I think my DHC blushes when I sit in it.
When I had an Elite I used to hide around the corner until the crowd of it’s admirers had vanished before I dared to return to it.
And then I even had all of my hair 
I don’t live on memories, tomorrow’s another day 
John
As I bought my first Elan in 1975, it?s easy to determine on which side of the fence I lay. It?s a balaclava and goggles, Jim, the paper bag will just blow away.
But yet more weight to the argument has been provided, as if it were needed. Rohan?s just posted up some great pictures of his car at Sandown.
lotuselan.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17486
Take a look at the third picture. The Elan looks gorgeous, and even the following pair of MGBs look good. Then there are a couple of things following behind which seem to have scaffolding poles sticking out everywhere. Not exactly beautiful, are they?
Compare any car that has been made as a coupe and as a convertible, and the coupe always comes out on top, because the design is complete. It?s very hard, when the roof is chopped off, to have a profile anything other than a flat slab with a windscreen sticking up. The E Type coupe, MGB GT, Triumph GT6, Aston DB5 /6, early 60s Corvette split screen and Ferrari Daytona are prime examples of the Coupe winning hands down over it?s convertible sibling.
And the Ferrari 250 swb along with the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato are recognised as the most stunning SPORTS cars ever built. I don?t think that anybody tried to take the roof off one of those.
Mark
Other classic ghastlies that fit the bill are VW Beetle & WV Golf. Niether particularly pretty but as dropheads ugly as sin.
The E Type coupe was really something to behold as Mark says,
but the +2 version
On the other hand I do rather like the +2 Elan chopped version.
But niether would I chop an Elan Coupe
“In the eyes of the beholder”
A runaway race for Rohan I would think; no real competition there 
Hang on guys! What about the wind in the hair, at ‘one’ with nature, flies in the teeth experience that is open air motoring. The smells of the countryside as we blast down a favorite lane, our feelings alive and a broad grin on our face!
It’s a drophead for me and bugger what everyone else thinks of me - at least I know I am enjoying myself 
Tim
O.K. Tim, very poetic; nevertheless something I can sympathise with,
but “Wind in your hair”
You must be takin’ the pi55
Yours
Follically challenged
Errm,
the thread’s called Coupe to drophead
not Toupe to Skinhead.
The likeness is however remarkable, particulary the abject fear of “she who shall be obeyed”
Got rid of mine a long while ago Still got a “Lotus problem” though. 
Yours
Folically challenged 
Well, chaps, it’s always a controversial subject. Tim, you’ve put up a robust, and in so many ways, convincing argument. However, consider the following.
Here he is, the well known Jeremy Clarkson. He’s no oil painting, but he doesn’t scare children when in his normal and rested state…as he would appear driving a coupe…
And here he is driving a convertible…
quod erat demonstrandum.
That doesn’t seem to BE a car?
Is he driving a bridge?
Mark
That is not a drop head!
There are several other things I could call it though…
Tim
That man’s so brilliant, if someone gave him a Bridge to drive
he would!
See I can do Clarkson talk, bollox that is
John
