Tumbleweeds

Oh yus. And off after a 5 second delay if you switch on again.

It's scratched to f*ck. The seller is a painter, it's £170 as is or £300 painted to his colour code which seems a fair deal to me. It has a headlining and a heated screen which is apparently not always the case.

Another thing to check if your friend hasn't done so is that the car has the hardware to take the hardtop.

It needs 2 little 'frankenstein' bolts to go onto the shiny bits on the rear deck and a foot bolted to the car where the B pillar would start so the hardtop can clip on.

Lots of cars have the bits already, but some don't.

This probably isn't the cheapest way to get it:

Ragtops aren't that popular in Oz mainly due to the lack of ozone protection.

They aren't that popular in sunny/hot countries generally cos of the inevitability of getting burnt to a crisp as I understand it.

However, I know someone who owns a convertible in Dubai and they regularly drive with the roof down in the evenings. As do various convertible users I know of in the likes of Florida and Nevada.

Just wondered if there were advantages to installing a hardtop over using the perfectly serviceable and standard fit convertible top somewhere like Western Australia. I notice that it makes my car slightly stiffer for example.

WA is pretty big mind you, its probably raining in some part of it.

(c:

Same here.

Which suggests its an OEM one. Which is a good thing.

You do need the Frankenbolts, but you can get away without the B-post clamps. I'm not saying it's clever to do so, but you can and the roof will stay on the car.

It definitely has the Frankenstein bolts, he told me so. Clearly he's been on some sort of weird interweb based MX5 type forum thingy and has learnt the lingo.

He's wanted a ragtop since having a go in David Parr's silver Morgan.

My GTM was exactly like that. Whenever I did a competitive event, I always drove it with the top on.

Aircon is out of gas but girlfriend mainly uses it for commuting in the morning and early evening before the sun is full force.

Fraser

Yeah it does but we live on the coast so low summer night time temps are still around 20 degrees C. I love having the top down at night and the heater on full blast.

Fraser

Actually it is mainly due to price and lack of choice. We are only starting to get slightly cheaper convertibles. Up until a few years ago your choices were Audi/Merc/Beemer, MX-5 or an old FJ40 Landcruiser.

Fraser

Our one has neither of those, bare metal roof and no heat on the rear screen.

Fraser

What sort of money does it cost to get a motor out there? ISTR you were on about doing this as a business at some point?

All depends, to trailer something there isn't cheap at all. If you had something that could be driven there then you could probably get it there for £250ish one way. All depends on fuel economy etc :-). It's