Just wondering if anyone has done this...

I saw something at Carlisle, where someone actually made a kit with a removable hard top for 99+ cars. It looked fantastic! I was very impressed with it.

-=NightHawk=- said:

im curious as to if anyone knows of anyone who has made their coupe into a hard top convertable? im curious as to how it looks....i know it can be done on a lot of cars..im not sure on stangs tho nor do i know how much a custom job like that would cost...anyone have any insight on this?

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I don't know about the Mustang but its pretty rare to be able to cut the roof off of a coupe to make it a convertable.

Even something as simple (and old) as an MGB it could not be done as they have slightly different floor pans due to the extra strenghtening required by the convertable. The only common conponent was the bonnet, even the fron wings where different.

As the Mustang SN95 platform is not renown for strucural rigididty I would have though cutting the roof off would be a disaster.

The original Lotus Elan had the roof cut off, but it used a ladder chassis not a monococ so the bodyshell had no bearing on the structural rigidity.

The same goes for Corvettes and TVR's although they don't have a ladder chassis they use a speaceframe.


I'm not saying its impossible but the amount of strengthening required will make a heavy car vastily over weight and probably have wooden handling and scuttle shake. Big companies like Toyota and Ford spend millions on developing convertables and they are always inferior to the coupe strucutally wise, so a small garage is unlikely to solve the problems that the big boys couldn't.

Unibody construction makes this idea unfeasible, unadvisable, and dangerous...

That's how Ford made the early Fox-body convertibles...they sent coupes to an aftermarket place that chopped the top and installed the convertible top.

That's why the Fox convertibles had such tremendous shake.

Kilgore Trout said:

Unibody construction makes this idea unfeasible, unadvisable, and dangerous...

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Kilgore Trout said:

Unibody construction makes this idea unfeasible, unadvisable, and dangerous...

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Ford made an ultra rare hardtop in like '94 or '95 I think. I think it was dealer option and I think they made less than maybe 1000 or 1500 of them.

It was 1995 and it was with Cobra's. This person has one. http://www.tarathatcher.com/

My brother is just in the middle of doing this to his car right now. It looks killer. His is a black 2001 with a roush body kit, saleen scoops, saleen chrome 18's and a Cobra R wing. I will posta pic as soon as it is done

www.jmsproductsinc.com

i've seen someplace that made an aftermarket removable hardtop for the vert 94-98....anybody know the name of the company?

littleblackvert said:

i've seen someplace that made an aftermarket removable hardtop for the vert 94-98....anybody know the name of the company?

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www.jmsproductsinc.com


www.karkraft.com

Linz said:

I saw something at Carlisle, where someone actually made a kit with a removable hard top for 99+ cars. It looked fantastic! I was very impressed with it.

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i saw that too. to be perfectly honest, i think it looked like an ass...