1951 Studebaker Commander State

You know the refrain: When the top goes down the price goes up! It’s a cliché, but it’s true. Still, if you want that open-air experience, take a look at the early ’50s — a largely forgotten era between the recycled prewar designs of 1946-’48 and the fin-and-chrome-bedecked insolent chariots of 1957-’59. The folks who were supposed to feel nostalgic for those cars never really seemed to drive prices up very far, and now that they’ve largely aged out of the market, cars of the 1949-’54 period especially have become ever more attainable.

Even within that era, the savvy shopper will forget the Ford and Chevrolet products. While they were produced in great numbers, affordable examples have gotten hard to find. Instead, it’s worth looking at the middle-priced segment, which was in its heyday in the early ’50s and is virtually moribund today.

“Middle priced” for our purposes means a convertible that cost around $2,500 in 1951. Adjusted for inflation, that equates to $25,000 today. You can’t go out and buy a new five-passenger ragtop for that anymore, but interestingly, that’s right in the middle of where the popular