Whenever a car company releases a convertible sports car, there’s a question that people will inevitably ask: “What would it look like if it had a hard top?” That question may also be accompanied by complaints about convertibles being noisy, heavy, and not as structurally stiff as a fixed-roof car, but that’s beside the point. Every once in a while, a company will indulge the idea of a fixed-roof version of its roadster. BMW had one of the most memorable answers to that question with the Z3 Coupe, which was more of a hatchback, and was affectionately referred to as the “clown shoe.” It’s memorable enough that a designer named Davide Virdis applied the idea to a contemporary of the Z3, the first-generation Miata. As it turns out, the Miata would’ve taken to the hatchback conversion even better than its German rival.
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