I am trying to invetigate turning my Coupe into a Cabriolet similar to the picture of the one on the website.

Anybody got any ideas where to start?

Is this a good or a bad idea?

Any advice welcome.

start by sawing the roof off

I thinks it's a COOL idea!! don't know where to start.. but i think you need a good pair of siscors... :P

cheers

coen

You would probably be better off going for something along the lines of the F575 Superamerica.

my advice would be to give up mow tbh. as nice as a mock up looks, i think it would drive like a pig/twist like a snake/take money like a whore. i do wish tou all the luck in the world though as i would love to see one

Bit harsh

I have no objection to somebody making the coop into a convertible. I'd love to see it done, but surely the costs involved would outweigh your child like curiosity? But if you're rich, do it! Why not?!

you are going to need to add some serious stength to the chassis.

would be nice though, worth trying if you have the time/money/ know how

Hmmm. I did read somewhere that the floor, and chassis on the Coupe was actually a lot stiffer than most of the previous Fiats.

That said, with the roof removed, it's gonna be a pretty wibbly-wobbly experience without some serious bulstering.

Another potential hiccup. The doors have a frame for the windows, this would need to be looked at to create that true open cab deck.

But remember no-one has done it, so we cannot say for sure how it would go or end up.

A few years back there were only 1 or 2 people with 300 bhp and 500 bhp was never heard of, but now its normal, but it still needed the first few brave people to get out there and do it.

So whats to say that if someone tries a convertible it will go wrong or right.

If a 2.4 conversion costs £10k and people have them, it can't be long before someone does a convertible version.

If you have ever driven your coupe in winter with the doors iced up and heard the creaking sound as the chassis twists or having jacked up one side to have to drag the door open i think it can be said that the coupe chassis twists around a smidge.

It is however do able. It will require substanstial reinforcement of the floorpan and possible cross bracing of the chassis (similar to a large strut brace)

If you are going to try it why not buy a 16v normally aspirated for very little and try it out on that first. As this has less power the forces invloved will be less and may make for an easier introduction to the project. Do it i say

My dad has an Alfa Spider, and I would think that the Fiat Coupe with the roof chopped would have similar if not worse stiffness. As the cars do share the same floorpan.. The Spider is fairly wobbly anyway, even though it is supposedly stiffened before having the roof chopped. I can't see any obvious strenghthening under the Spider though compared with the GTV I used to own..

As Jeremy Clarkson said (Corectly for once!!) If you want a decent convertible, buy one that was designed to be a convertible to start with, not as a saloon or Coupe, which has had the roof cut off..

ask carlt for one hes got about 6 coops and hes choping one sone a black le i think

Cost a fortune in re-inforcing as 75% of the body shell strength is lost if the roof goes. Be a wonderful project to see but the cost of doing it and then getting SVA to keep it on the road would be horrible. Don't now what the MOT wallies would make of it either. Also maybe the extra weight/bracing will upset the handling and certainly reduce performance. I remember making a cabrio Talbot Alpine years back with an angle grinder and a whole afternoon.. The car was terminal rusty anyway..drove like it had a hunge in the middle..scrappies died laughing when I drove it to the crusher.

I want a carbon fibre bodyshell/floorpan which is so strong that the roof is not required and as such can be coupe, soft top or hard top/open top. imagine that!

oh and 'A few years back there were only 1 or 2 people with 300 bhp and 500 bhp was never heard of, but now its normal' normal? I feel so inadequate.

There used to be a company that would roof chop almost anything. There did a 8 series BMW and it looked quiet smart... This was about 7-8 years ago and the 8 series job cost (from memory) £15k+

This included rollover protection and body structure work...

Monocoque bodyshell is designed that the load is distributed through the whole shell, roof included. if you cut the roof off completely then the load path breaks and the stiffness goes..not urban myth unfortunately.

How about an X19 style targa top..that shouldn't do too much to handling. Anybody any ideas?

Anyone do a photochop of the said targa roof?

You could get a steel spaceframe like on a TVR and fit a coupe body minus roof to it. That would be a good project, and it would be RWD..

Defeats the object..rather have a real 'topless coupe' in FWD than panels supergued to another chassis. Any body though about wind noise and buffeting on the softop version? Ragtops are very noisy at speed and suffer interesting suction effects, poorly designed ones suck out loose items in the cockpit ie maps, coats etc. 150Mph with the roof off might be a challlenge.

as stated the roof is essential. as part of my degree i had to do some engineering units.

we had to build a chassis, test it on a jig, then cut the roof off and compare, ok the materials were card and glue and it was scaled down but the theory is the same, the result was in fact 84% less torsional ridgidity.... However, we then redesigned the chassis and made it more ridgid then the origonal coupe shell by making the door sills large so you have to step over them like in a lotus else, also increased the size of the transmission tunnel, again like lotus, as they did this on the europa which had a huge transmission tunnel but had very good torsional ridgidity. obviously doing things on a scaled down cardboard model is easy, the cost to do this in real life is somewhat more.

Car manufactures are now biulding convertables and putting the roof on after, the results are that they are much more ridgid and coupe and cabs are getting closer, the downsize is that they are getting heavier and heavier so different materials have to be used and introduced like aluminuim just to try and help counteract this. Ultimatly the new coupes are now being comprimised by the added weight.

How about losing the boot and doing a folding hard top, suprising not as complecated as it sounds, technology has been there for 30years but realise to the publie has been held back just because of profit due to the shape of the coupes roof though you would have no boot you would still have a relativly ridgid car when the roof is up (still not as strong as before though) and when the off is down you will have to just be sensible and use it for posing and not progressing.... just a though... essay over

How about doing it in the style of the Lambo Gallardo Spider , with a central bar from the dash to the rear? Painted to match the body colour & blended into the body coloured dash strip, it may look very

Is this what your trying to achieve

http://www.fiatcoupe.net/pics/specpics/bigfoto06.jpg

That would be nice but impossible in practise to do..roll bars, chassis strenght etc.

Might be able to do this (excuse the 10 secs with paint) which is an open framework like the existing room pillars into which the roof fits. Downside of all targa tops is finding somewhere to store it when its off.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y202/rumblegum/Coup2.jpg

Or this with bodywork done properly, naturally it has to be in sprint blue.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y202/rumblegum/car3b-1.jpg

Skodaman: don't ever go into car design

As it says in the post..10 second doodle with paint. Feel free to contribute better graphics rather than just spectate...

Only having a bit of fun mate - hence the wink

Tempted to do a mockup for real. There's a smashed 20v in the local scrappy..well gutted but the body is intact. problem is finding a shed somewhere to put it.

I would imagine that if you accepted it would have to be a 2 seater, you could brace the body across where the back seats were, and hopefully regain the rigidity lost from taking the roof off?

Could do that and put in much stronger sills. I have a mate in TCD who's doing something with car design. Might see if he's interested. I still think a full frame roof with a hole in the middle is a lot easier than a full cabrio (think jumbo sunroof or Stilo style skyroof) Mock up is easy, getting the professionals to do it a real car is €€€. Is it worth it on a something thats worth lunch money?

Your right, although there have been loads of car's convereted by coachbuilders (Mk 3 cortina convertible anyone?) I suspect that the only way we'll see a convertible Coop will be someone who has the skills to do it themselves, as paying to have it done would far outweigh the end value of the car. However, as the cars get cheaper, I it might make it atractive to one of the many talented body shops out there.

Why not weld up the doors completely? Sure, it might not be the most dignified way of getting in and out, but would add a fair bit of strength once the roof is off?
Adding a double TT style chrome or body coloured (to match the interior dash stripe) roll hoop would be good too, both behind the driver + passenger, and behind the rear seats too. These can both be bolted into the chassis. The hoops behind the driver and passenger would also double as a harness bar, meaning you wouldn't need to worry about the seat belt mountings, which are on the pillars at present.
The insides of the roll hoops could be fitted with a fine mesh to act as a windbreak. The same tubing can be used to beef up the windscreen pillars.
As all the interior would be removed during the conversion then seam welding and adding further bracing to the floorpan could be achieved.

Converting a car without air con would make sense, and be lighter to start with. Junk the spare (use foam) would also save weight, re position the battery to the boot to help distribution.

I would keep the roof and maybe think of using it as a winter only hard top, complete with rear windows and heated screen intact?

During the summer, use a tonneau cover, similar to the ones used by kit car makers?

Westfield

A different tonneau

When driving in the rain, just keep your speed up and you won't get wet. Anything above 50mph and i'd be completely dry in the MX5.

my half-arsed effort

looks rather good.. debadged nobody would have a clue what it was. Still don't fancy 140+ in it...

There's always the reverse way of doing it, like this old chestnut clicky

If you put hollow box bracing in where the back seats went it might be possible to modify a folding soft top roof to fit. Bespoke one would be costly. Also car now ends with a huge boot..the space under the bracing. Maybe possible to alter the Coupes front end heavy problem. Battery etc in here? although not keen on having the cables running through the cockpit.

Get the engine in there!

I wouldn't it's horrible

but Europas 'half hearted' attempt is well cool put my name down for one

why not buy just a cheapo an chop the roof of it and keep ur original coop good ? there so cheap now id do it if i hadnt commited to so many other things plus the lack of room

i wouldnt bother about a roof id just chop it of an fill in the blanks would look great just for a drive around in the sunny weather nice n easy

Could this be a FCC project? If every owner at the top contributed a fiver...

£8,195 - enough to buy an older example and pay someone who knows what they're doing to chop it up?

And it'd only take 32 years for us all to have it for a weekend

Someone will do one someday, but as mentioned above, it will be done by someone who has the skills themselves.

If only I had those skills......and money......and a Coupe.......and somewhere to work on it.....

and the time dave

Spoke to a bodyshop (Vrestoration on Isle of Wight) they chop anything and have a load of projects on the go. Ballpark for cabrio coupe is 8-10k and 5-6 months. Complete stripdown, chassis balance, strain gauge, the works. Work out where the weak and strong points are and design the chopped version to be as strong as the original. Guy reckoned a roof off job was far easier than a targa top..they leak like F* he said. Hood would be sourced from a production cabrio..if they found one that fitted otherwise it takes time to make something that doesn't look like a pram cover.

Due to the cutting and welding the paintwork will be wrecked by the time they've finished so the price includes a bare metal rub down and complete repaint.

Problem is SVA approval..(bloody EU bureaucracy..car safety installers must now be licenced..only specialists can weld roll cages and seatbelt mountings) and needs inspections as its done. Car would be returned, repainted, softop and with all the paperwork to make it street legal.

Sound great but I'm not spending 10k on a car that cost 3k...

I've decided i want one after seeing europas effort - ive started a penny jar to raise the funds - if you've got any spare change pm me for an address to send it to and i'll let u have a drive in about 15 yrs time........

nice one skoda, maybe just do without the hood and have a real summer toy so for a 450+ bhp cabrio toy we are looking at 12 months and 25k. sign me up

Post deleted by Skodaman

yeh me to,then we could have a meet and all have a go

Go on then

My money's on the table then £££££ Who's going to take on the challenge?

Ok guys..first one to send me £10k gets a Cabrio Coupe...

going to see a man on sunday f,,k this think i will have a go at it nice to b the one that dos it,see what he says,will post

As per my post the hard bit is getting it street legal when all the work has been done..I guess its possible to avoid an SVA but I doubt you'd get another MOT without it and insurance would be invalid.

I'd have thought an SVA would be 'fairly' easy (compared to building a car from scratch)? You know that most things would pass ok as a given, so you only have to make sure everything is strong, and the seatbelts are correctly positioned etc?
I found out a bit about the SVA test from a kit car show I was at last week.

Apparently not..used to be..but new regs (I'm told) means all safety critical welding and seatbelt mountings must be done by a licenced safety welder and certified. saw something on the telly the other night about a guy who rebuilt one of those 60's boat car things and the regulator boys had a field day going through the paperwork for safety certs, welders, inspections etc..its do able but not as easy as it was.

been on phone with my guy he says no f......ing way you have to have some sort of blue print done by an expert then you have to supmit that to some one and then they work it out to c if it works our not by this time its cost to much well i tryed

I can't believe that every person who makes a kit car has to go through proving all that?
Many kits sold still require a large amount of work using parts from Donor cars, as well as riveting, welding etc. It would be the death of the kit industry if you had to prove that all this work was carried out by qualified bods?

um this guy has worked at cars all his life who r you to dout him dave i am telling you what might happen.

Easy! No tone needed, i'm not doubting what the new rules may be, i'm just saying that I can't believe that EVERY self builder of kit cars proves the person doing the welding and fabrication is qualified, in most cases they built it themselves after all?
But then i'm not an expert as you kindly pointed out.

Re-reading Skodamans post (which I was mainly replying to), I guess the key is in the safety critical bit, so presumably as long as the kit chassis, roll bars and seatbelt mountings are prefabricated or welded by someone qualified the rest of the build could be done by someone off the street?

In the case of the Coupe cabriolet, you could do an awful lot yourself, such as removing the interior, cutting of the roof, sourcing, measuring and cutting of the materials, it would leave just the welding of those parts to a qualified bod, probably not for a huge cost either?

o sorry mate got carried away a bit thought you didunt beleve me,truth is no one seems to no for sure i was going by what he said,but beleve me i would be willing ,so would he to give it a shot, ill bet that some one will,and soon,its that money thing

Of course its possible to do a homebuild / kitbuild car. However most of them are built from plans where somebody has worked out the hard bits before. Except that there are no plans for a cabrio coupe which makes it harder.

Love to do it but whats the value afterwards of a '96 Coupe Turbo softop with 85k on it?

Only economic way yot do it would be to buy a new Malaysian car and ship it straight to the body shop..£10k for the car, £10k for the conversion...