# Convertible or coupé — which works better over a term?

URL: https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/guides/convertible-vs-coupe-six-month-lease

Last checked: 2026-09-11

**Choose by the months your term covers. A convertible leased from March earns its keep; the same car from October is a coupé with a heavier boot lid and a higher deposit. A coupé is quieter at speed, easier to leave parked, better on luggage and cheaper to deposit.**

A convertible lease is really a bet on which part of the year it covers. What the roof costs you in boot space, refinement and deposit, and when it is worth it anyway.

## Which part of the year does your term cover?

This is the whole question, and almost nobody asks it first. The minimum term is three months, which in Britain is very nearly a season, so the start date decides more about an open car than the car does. A term beginning in March covers the best of what Britain offers and makes the roof the best money on the car. The same term beginning in October covers the months when the roof will come down a handful of times.

That is not a reason to avoid an open car in winter. A heated seat and a wind deflector make a cold clear day genuinely good, and a February morning on an empty A-road with the roof down is a better memory than a warm July traffic jam. It is a reason to be honest about frequency before paying a higher deposit for a mechanism you will rarely use.

If the start date is flexible by even a few weeks, say so when you [enquire](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/enquire). Moving a term from late February to mid-March changes what you get out of it more than changing the car does.

## What do you give up with the roof?

Three things, consistently, and none of them is pace.


Boot space, and more than the brochure implies. A folding roof has to live somewhere and it lives in the boot. On most open cars the usable space drops again once the roof is stowed, so the luggage test is the roof-down figure rather than the roof-up one.
Refinement at speed. Even a very good fabric roof lets in more road and wind noise than a fixed one. Over months of motorway miles that is the difference people notice most.
Rear-seat usefulness. Where an open car has rear seats at all, they are tighter than the fixed-roof equivalent, because the roof mechanism takes room out of the same area.


What you get back is not a feature anybody can list. It is the noise, the sky, and an ordinary drive ceasing to be ordinary.

## Is a convertible worse in British weather?

Less than people expect with the roof up. Modern folding hard-tops and multi-layer fabric roofs are quiet and dry, and the car underneath is not more fragile in rain, not worse in cold and does not need storing.

Where the weather genuinely bites is the decision-making. You will check the forecast every morning of the term, and on about half of them you will put the roof down anyway and put it back up at the first junction. That is part of living with one for a season, it is faintly ridiculous, and most people who do it would do it again.

The mechanism itself takes seconds on most of the cars we list, which is what makes the habit survivable.

## Which is easier to leave parked?

The fixed roof, and this is the argument people forget until month two.

A fabric roof left on a street overnight, night after night, is a thing you will think about, particularly in a city, and it changes where you are willing to park. If the car will live outside a flat rather than on a drive or in a garage, that is worth saying at the enquiry stage rather than discovering.

It changes what you leave inside, too. Nobody leaves anything visible in an open car, roof up or down, and across a whole term that becomes a daily habit rather than an occasional inconvenience.

The fixed-roof car asks none of that. Over a whole term the difference is not dramatic on any single day and it is noticeable by the end of it.

## What do the two cost over the term?

The monthly figure is set per car rather than per body style, so there is no convertible surcharge to quote. What does differ is the deposit.

Convertible deposits in our catalogue start at £3,000 — the [Porsche 718 Boxster S](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/porsche-718-boxster-s) and the [Mercedes-AMG SL 63](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/mercedes-amg-sl-63) — and run to £10,000 on the [Bentley Continental GTC](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/bentley-continental-gtc), the [Ferrari Roma Spider](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/ferrari-roma-spider) and the [Huracán EVO Spyder](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/lamborghini-huracan-evo-spyder). Fixed-roof sports cars start lower, at £2,000 on the [Toyota GR Supra](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/toyota-gr-supra), the [Ford Mustang GT](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/ford-mustang-gt) and the [Audi S5 Coupe](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/audi-s5-coupe).

The excess matches the deposit on every car we list, and excess-mileage rates are broadly comparable between an open car and its fixed-roof sibling. The roof shows up in the deposit, not in the monthly.

## Which cars sit on each side?

Open: the [718 Boxster S](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/porsche-718-boxster-s), the [SL 63](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/mercedes-amg-sl-63), the [Maserati GranCabrio Trofeo](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/maserati-grancabrio-trofeo), the [Continental GTC](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/bentley-continental-gtc), the [Roma Spider](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/ferrari-roma-spider), the [McLaren 750S Spider](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/mclaren-750s-spider), the [Artura Spider](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/mclaren-artura-spider) and the [Huracán EVO Spyder](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/lamborghini-huracan-evo-spyder).

One of them is ours: the [Audi R8 Spyder V10 performance quattro](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/audi-r8-spyder-performance), on the three-month minimum term. It is the only open car in our own fleet, so it is the only one on this list we hold, prepare and deliver ourselves — everything else here is arranged through a vetted partner and confirmed before we quote. All of them are quoted on request.

Fixed roof: the [911 GT3](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/porsche-911-gt3), the [Aston Martin Vantage](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/aston-martin-vantage), the [Lotus Emira V6](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/lotus-emira), the [BMW M2](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/bmw-m2) and the [GR Supra](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/cars/toyota-gr-supra) cover most of what people mean by coupé.

## Can you change your mind partway through?

Not inside an agreement. A minimum term is a minimum term, and a lease that could be swapped on a whim would not be a lease.

What you can do is plan for it. If the term starts in autumn and the car you actually want is open, taking the fixed roof now and the convertible the following spring is a sequence rather than a compromise, and it is worth pricing as two agreements at the outset. [One car for a year against shorter terms back to back](https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/guides/one-year-lease-vs-two-six-month-leases) goes through what that costs in practice.

Tell us the whole plan when you enquire rather than the first half of it. It changes which cars we look at.

## Frequently asked questions

### Can the roof be operated while the car is moving?

On most of the cars we list, yes, up to a low speed — enough to put it up at a set of lights rather than on a dual carriageway. It varies by car and it is one of the details we confirm on the specific vehicle rather than generalise about.

### Do convertibles carry a higher deposit?

In our catalogue they start higher — £3,000 at the bottom against £2,000 for the cheapest fixed-roof sports cars — and the excess matches the deposit on every car we list. These figures are provisional pending confirmation, and we give you the real one for your car before anything is agreed.

### Is a soft top a problem on a lease?

It changes where you are comfortable parking rather than making the car unleasable. The practical advice is the same as for any prestige car: off-street overnight where you can, nothing visible left inside, and tell us early if the car will live on a street so the conversation happens before delivery.

### Does the car come with a wind deflector?

On many of them, yes, though on some it is an option rather than standard. We confirm what the specific car has rather than assuming it, because a deflector is often the difference between a usable and an unusable roof-down journey at speed.

### Is the car delivered with the roof up or down?

Up, every time, whatever the weather is doing. Handover includes a joint walk round and a run through the roof mechanism, and starting that with a dry interior is better for both of us. Put it down on your own drive thirty seconds after we leave.

*Pre-launch note: the driver criteria, deposits, excesses and mileage allowances quoted here are read from Performance & Prestige's own catalogue data, which is still being confirmed with the owner and the insurer. Read them as the shape of the figures rather than as a quotation. What binds is your written quote and your agreement.*