Convertible rentals for East Tennessee

The 1995 Mazda Miata is the convertible that taught a generation what a convertible is supposed to feel like. About 2,200 pounds, 1.8L four, 5-speed manual, rear-wheel drive, and a real cloth soft top you put up and down by hand in twenty seconds. There is no power-folding hardtop, no electronic suspension, no driver-aids: just an open car, a small steering wheel, and the road.

On the Foothills Parkway, the Cades Cove loop, and Cherohala Skyway, the Miata is exactly the right car. The pavement is smooth, the speeds are scenic-low, and the sky is the point. With the top down at 35–45 mph on the Foothills Parkway at golden hour, you're not driving past the Smokies. You're inside them. The Miata's low seating position and small windshield put your eyeline below the door tops, which sounds odd until you experience it; the whole landscape is overhead.

It's also the right car for weddings. The NA Miata is photogenic in a way modern convertibles can't replicate: the proportions are correct, the soft top is fabric (not vinyl), and it lands in photos the same way it landed in magazines thirty years ago.

East Tennessee has more good top-down driving than most of the country. The Foothills Parkway runs the south face of the Smokies with constant sky overhead: its western run completed in 2018, smooth pavement, no commercial traffic. Cades Cove is an 11-mile paved loop that's essentially a slow scenic drive on the valley floor; perfect for a top-down sunset cruise with wildlife showing up alongside. Cherohala Skyway gives you 43 miles of high-altitude open road from Tellico Plains to Robbinsville.

Weddings and anniversaries are the other natural convertible booking. Photos with the top down land differently than photos with the top up: the car becomes part of the sky, the light works differently, and the couple isn't framed by a roof. The Miata is the most-booked wedding car in our fleet for that reason.

And there's a class of trip that's just about the experience of driving top-down. Friends in for the weekend, you want the wind in your hair on the drive to dinner, the Miata is the rental that makes that trip the trip you wanted.

Tail of the Dragon is the obvious 'not a convertible road.' US-129 is 318 tight corners stacked closely together, and convertibles, even the Miata, flex slightly through aggressive direction changes in a way coupes don't. The Miata handles the Dragon well; it's a famously good road for it. But if the Dragon is the centerpiece of your trip, the BRZ is the stiffer, more communicative tool. If the Dragon is one segment of a larger Smokies trip and the rest is Foothills Parkway and Cades Cove, the Miata is still the right pick.

Cold weather is the other case. East Tennessee falls catch the occasional 50°F day even in October. Top-down driving with the heater blasting works in the Miata (and the heater is surprisingly good), but you spend half the trip cold. If you're booking a late-fall foliage trip, a comfortable coupe is sometimes the smarter pick.

Rain is fine. The Miata's soft top is well-sealed and surprisingly quiet for its age; it becomes a coupe in twenty seconds. We never refund weather, but rain doesn't ruin a Miata trip.

Long-haul highway from out of state: the Miata works, but it isn't the most comfortable highway car at 75 mph for hours. If you're driving in from Atlanta or Nashville and the rental is mostly a highway trip with a scenic-driving cap on the end, a coupe like the Supra is more pleasant for the boring miles.