(FORTUNE Small Business) – It's time I talked with my 19-year-old son about the facts of life. He'd like to trade in our family SUV for a convertible. He's thinking about long drives on scenic highways with pretty girls, while I'm coping with how to transport five people and carry groceries. Thankfully, three new convertibles are arriving on the market, with enough range to please all kinds of buyers.

At the sensible end of the spectrum is Toyota's Camry Solara. This is the boulevard cruiser of rag tops: smooth, polished, and well-mannered. It was engineered from the start as a convertible, and the planning shows. The soft top raises and lowers in just ten seconds, and rear-seat passengers get more head room than in the Solara coupe. Sufficiently motivated by an all-aluminum 225-horsepower V-6 engine, the Solara won't rock your world, but it could make your day. Starting price for the SL model is $29,450; the well-equipped SLE version I drove carried a sticker of $32,178.

To make a convertible version of the funky PT Cruiser, Chrysler engineers replaced the metal roof with a fabric top, substituted two wide doors for four narrow ones, and put a "basket handle" between the front and rear seats. Voilà, a funky convertible. The first two alterations work fine, but the basket handle is a disaster. While it stiffens the body and houses the front seat belts and roof lights, it ruins the lines and provides little protection in a rollover accident. (It's not technically a roll bar; Chrysler didn't want the liability.) The Cruiser is practical, though. The trunk lid swings wide open, and there's lots of leg room in the rear. It's also modestly priced: The base model (150-horsepower four-cylinder engine) begins at $27,565; my turbo-powered tester cost $28,355.

Sure to create a sensation when it arrives later this summer is the Mini Convertible. It's just as idiosyncratic as the original, yet has a very different personality--more beach buggy than pocket rocket. Prices will start around $25,000. For that you get the only fully automatic top in this trio, the tiniest trunk and back seat, and the most curb appeal. You also get, believe it or not, a sunroof: The first 16 inches of the top open and close along roof rails. You'll never want to use it, though. In the Mini, you'll have the top down 24/7 so that you can see--and so that the world can see you.