OPEN TOP MOTORING It's the ultimate evocation of a carefree, affluent, sun-drenched lifestyle. A road, preferably somewhere photogenic such as the Corniche, a beautiful woman, a fan of honeyed tresses floating behind her in the breeze. And a car.
Not a regular one. Not some cure-for-insomnia family saloon with about as much allure as a barium enema.
Not some steroid-fuelled, bulked up SUV with all the subtlety of the sort of gold Breitlings most of their over-compensating owners also sport.
No, this car is that most aspirational of vehicles - this car is a convertible. For a convertible is not just a means for, it's a lifestyle statement.
Sure, so is buying a Ford Focus, which lets people know you're not rich, probably have a family and probably got it through your company and not in the way buying a Ferrari screams "look at me I'm rich and have almost no taste" (unless you've opted for a 575M).
Convertible though say something else: "I'm young, adventurous, single and quite possibly have the wherewithal to actually take this thing somewhere sunny."
This is the romance of the rag top. It has always been so. From the car's very origins as a horseless carriage, open-bodied and with a built-in 4 mph wind-in-the-hair thrill to the most modern high aspiration Ferrari 360 Spyder, the idea of driving a car open to the elements has come with a cachet that most find hard to resist.
It might have something to do with the perception of open-roofed cars as having a sporting heritage.
The first image that springs to mind when thinking of racing cars is that of an open-wheel, no-roof, bullet-shaped missile hurtling around race tracks enveloped in a highly desirable mist of excitement and glamour.
Convertible sports cars echo that glamour and excitement. You too can feel like a racing driver, tackling the elements and your own limits in a vehicle with a pedigree borne of the race track. The fact that the bulk of rag-tops have been sports models is no co-incidence.
But the soft-top cruiser comes with its own aspirational charisma.
Think of Bentley Continentals and you're instantly transported to a land of conspicuous consumption, where affluence is a given, a place where a complimentary yacht is probably also on the agenda.
But while convertibles have always been perceived as the playthings of the rich and famous there have been everyman rag-tops that bring a ray of open-topped sunshine to any surburbanite's lifestyle.
Riley, MG, Triumph, all brought the rag top to the common man in a practical package.
The same holds today. The car that saved Mazda was the MX-5, a roadster that harked back to a golden age of MGBs, Triump Spitfires, Fiat 124 Spiders and Sunbeam Tigers, but more than anything the marvellous Lotus Elan.
Cheap, reliable, easy to run, with joyous handling, the original MX-5 was a remarkable success story becoming the small convertible of choice for young Americans who knew the car as the Miata.
The success of the MX-5 got all the manufacturers back into a market niche which had been moribund since MG and Triumph became names only seen in the pages of Practical Classic magazine.
And with the re-emergence of the everyman convertible came a technological revolution in how the "soft-top" was approached. I can distinctly remember the traumas associated with trying to fold up or down the roof on my mother's Triumph Spitfire MKIV - a frustrating mess of brackets, poppers, covers and clips.
Even the MX-5 was a throwback in that regard, possessing an old-school folding roof that required 10 minutes and a handbook to operate.
But as the manufacturers recognised that a market they had previously considered dead and buried was actually vibrant and hungry for choice, the development of better solutions quickly followed.
Of course, electronic roofs have been around since the 1950s, with a plethora of US convertibles having retractable lids. But to have such a thing in an affordable small sports car was until recently not even an option.
The ball was set rolling with the Mercedes SLK, their mid-range roadster which came with a head-turning electronically folding roof.
As the competition in the market got hotter, the feature became not just some exotic luxury for high-end rag-tops, but a feature demanded by the lowliest convertible customer.
All well and good, we all want one - a nice Jaguar E-Type roadster or big Austin-Healey 3000 or a modern BMW Z4 sitting in the driveway for a spot of weekend blasting around leafy country roads - but what about the practicality of convertibles?
Sure if you live in the south of France or California, owning a car with a fold-down roof has possibilities. There is a recognisably sunny season in Mediterranean countries. You can be guaranteed anextensive period during the year when you can beconfident that you're not going to burn out the motors of the roof retractor due to the unpredictability of the weather.
The same cannot be said of this watery little island. If Spain gets on average 300 days of sunshine a year, Ireland must get, oh four.
That's four days a year when you can peel back the roof on yourcachet-laden 9-3 ragtop, and let everybody admire the creaminess of the car's interior.
And if the rain does not fall, we live in a country where the sun shines palely. Crack open the roof of your convertible on an Irish summer's day and you're likely to not only get some strange looks from the wary locals but also a severe case of frostbite from the wind chill factor associated with wantonly driving around in arctic conditions.
The electronic roof will help, but the sheer paucity of opportunities to use the dame would seem to make buying a convertible a pointless exercise in Ireland.
Pointless but popular.
The success of models such as the MX-5 and lately the Peugeot 206CC and 307CC as well as the Renault Megane CC and Mini Convertible have proved that Irish customers are as in love with the dream of open-tops on the open road as anyone.
The mystique may be difficult to define - a pinch of sport, a healthy dollop of affluence, a smidgen of summer wistfulness - but it seems that no matter where we drive, from California's Route One to the Grand Corniche or to the M50 on a wet Wednesday afternoon, the romance of the rag-top is irresistible.
It may be the most ill-starred love affair in motoring for Irish people, but doomed love is often the most thrilling.