Hard luck hard top!

I was loitering in the MGf/tf parts & accessories department on our “local” everything store called eBay earlier this afternoon & noticed a hard top. I would like to have a second at cheap money to experiment with, although my dear wife thinks it an unnecessary extravagance, in her world it would be just that & as I have said on here before More Cattle More Care, plus it would have to go somewhere.
I therefore have bowed to her wish. However when I noticed a hardtop for sale in the matching colour to my car I just had to have a look.
I didn’t buy it because I want a Christmas to remember for the joy I see in the faces of my grand children & not due to being in the dog house, it was after all in Devon, I’m in Lancashire. It’s not the right time of year to invent another holiday to pick up a second hard top, so after forcing my finger away from the bid button I carried on building a Lego castle & forgot about it.
I didn’t say it had five hours twenty minutes to run did I, so after the due time had elapsed & I was home in the workshop I checked in & the auction had ended with the price remaining unchanged from my initial viewing.
And that price, 0. 99p just less than a quid.
Missed opportunity, probably but I didn’t think I could in all conscious have bought it for 99p.
M

There is a reason that some things need a reserve on ebay even though they charge extra for it. Here is a perfect example......

If i could find one cheap enough Ive always wondered about getting hold of a spare hardtop to convert into a targa with removable panels over the driver and passenger, T formation. It would need some metalwork made up to tie the front rail to the back to restore rigidity and some work to make sure the removeable panels would form a proper seal to the rest of the roof and the windows . Wonder if anyone has tried it.

Got a spare hard top in Cambridgeshire you can have if you want to try it? You'd just have to collect.

The experiment I alluded to in my initial comment was to make a targa top. If I only needed to spend a few quid it’d be an interesting exercise.
A gratis contribution from Cambridgeshire is a very attractive consideration, but we wouldn’t be down that way until next summer.
Thank you for the offer, if the offer still stands in six months, I may give you a PM, don’t sit on it on my behalf, a lot can change within that time scale.
M

I paid £300 for my hardtop, used it once 4 years ago, currently in its storage bag. Its BRG to match my car.

To a degree that story will be mirrored throughout the forum.
You buy a ragtop roadster to get the wind in what’s left of your hair. Then you find you’re being gassed by all the shite being pumped out of the (poorly serviced) vehicles of our fellow road users. The ragtop doesn’t do a great job of isolation you from pollutants, noise & pissing down of the rain. So you spend £300 notes, in Brian’s case, only to find you’ve not improved the situation that much & it’s now just a car, all be it lower & less practical or comfortable.
£300 could have bought you a performance exhaust & a remap but you’ve ended up toddling along, only less wet & with fewer pollutants in your system.
Having a hardtop is a bit like “completing the set” after collecting all the chrome bits, changing all the lights to LED’s, 16” wheels with red four pot callipers & glass rear windowed ragtop.
I guess the majority of us are men of a certain age & have a more change jingling about in our pockets than we’ve have seen since before kids.
And I, for one, derive a lot of pleasure from buggering about with the car, which is why with having one hardtop sat on the car, I was half heartedly looking for another (cheap) so I could experiment by cutting it in half.
M

Confession time….. I actually do possess a hard top, for my F, I only use it when the car isn’t being used, it keeps most of the shit from finding its way in…..even in the shed.
Other than that it’s not on the car when in use.
I find it to hard to get in and outta the car with the soft top up, let alone a hard top!

That’s an age thing, why should you be any different from the rest of us creeky crocks who have to sit for a moment or two to recover, having just insinuated ourselves into a hooded over car.
I’ve been fitting an auxiliary low current 12 & 5volt supply in the drivers footwell & gave my head one hell of a crack on the hardtop as I flailed about while exiting, arse first, into a space, usually vacant, but then full of stuff I’ve been making for church.
And that’s a Christmas thing.
M

SpottyCat wrote:

Got a spare hard top in Cambridgeshire you can have if you want to try it? You'd just have to collect.

Thats extremely kind. Please can i give you a shout in the new year to take you up on that ?

Notanumber wrote:

Thats extremely kind. Please can i give you a shout in the new year to take you up on that ?

Sure thing, I'd be interested to see how a targa top idea came out. I always loved the Rover 200 coupe with that targa arrangement; I'd have one of those even today if I had the space. I do need to refit the glass into it, but should have time in the next couple of weeks to do that. The reason I removed it was to reseal it as it was leaking and also to try fixing one of the broken heating element spades that's detached itself from the glass - not sure I can get that done as I'm not sure of the best way to proceed without endangering the glass from too much heat from a soldering iron.

Anyway, I'll refit the glass with some butyl sealant and it should certainly do for a targa experiment - it would need a good sand and repaint anyway.

SC

I cant find a photo of a Rover 200 Targa. Did that have a single central removeable panel or separate panels for each side starting at the window line (as per Trans Am Targa ) ?