REMEMBER those movies of the 1930s and 1940s you saw on late television in the States? The hero, Cary Grant or John Wayne or maybe RobertTaylor, would take the heroine out for a drive in the California sun. Or in the moonlight.

And he'd be driving a nifty little convertible, maybe a '37 or '38 Ford. Thanks to the magic of the film crew, there'd be zero wind noise. The heroine's hair wouldn't blow one whit. If she got a bit chilly, which always happened, she just snuggled a mite closer to Cary or John or Robert. And everything was OK.

A whole generation of American youth was brought up to believe that "rag top" ownership was the epitome of the good life. It didn't much matter that you had to buy a new top for your jewel every couple of years and that you never could see out of the discolored rear plastic window.

Who cared that the tops didn't fit very well around the windows? But the rain came in. If you lived in the North, it was common in the winter to be greeted by a seat full of fine white snow that had sifted in. In the summer, though, you really lived.

Well, if you are one of those with a secret longing for convertible ownership, hustle down to your local dealer. Because the American rag top is about to go the way of the Dodo bird.

After poring over untold volumes of material I collected on the '73 Detroit offerings, all I could find were nine convertible models. And this includes the two versions of Mercury's Cougar, Chevy's Corvette and Ford's Mustang -

FoMoCo's only convert' by the way. My library of several hundred photos of '73 cars yielded but a single convert' photo - the Cad El Dorado. So I have to conclude that even those companies still manufacturing a rag top are not especially proud of the fact.

By '76, I'm predicting, this total will be down to two, and they'll be the personal sporty-car types.

"Just what happened?" I asked myself. "Why is the convertible dying just at the time when it should be healthiest? At a time when engineers have licked the problems of top life, tight windows, rattly joints, ease of putting up and down?"

One of the Dodge Boys, a local dealer, puts it this way, "No one has even asked about a convertible in the last couple of years." The fact is (and this dealer didn't know for sure) Dodge no longer manufactures a convertible.

However, I've found that marques that do have a convert' in their line often don't give it showroom space. "I have little call for'em," says a Chevy dealer. This year, Chevrolet trimmed its convertible offering to one besides the Corvette.
.