The Too Tall Roadster Blues - Gearhead Phase pt. III

Shopping for a little toy ‘vert is a little more challenging than it sounds.

I’m 6′ 3″, which rules a lot of them out to begin with.

I can’t sit in a Mazda MX-5 or a Honda S-2000 with the top up; my head sticks into the top about 2″.

The roof on a Nissan 350Z is high enough, but even with the seat all the way back, I couldn’t pull my left leg back to use the clutch without hitting the massive door speaker pod.

The Audi TT wasn’t bad, but the first one I really fell in love with driving was a Jaguar XK8.

Like most people who work for a living, I couldn’t much afford a new XK8 and the massive initial year depreciation, but I found a lightly used one that was in very nice shape, and tried to put together a deal.

Unfortunately, a reasonable deal just wouldn’t come together; a sign, I’m sure, that I wasn’t meant to buy an XK8 this time around.

While I was fooling with this, my girlfriend asked me what I thought about the Chrysler 300. I told her I thought it was big and probably handled like a boat, and besides I was looking for a roadster.

But the seed was planted. A few days later, I was driving past one of the local Chrysler dealers, and decided to stop and take a look…