Factory removable hardtop?

[Altema]

I took our youngest child out for a drive last night in the Karmann Ghia. We cruised around for a bit and used the drive-through at a McDonnalds for a snack. They forgot the straws, so I find a parking space and run inside, only to come back out to find a group of people gathered around the car. We talk for a while, and one guy states that his Ghia has a removable hardtop. I'm thinking that someone either built a Carson top for their vert, or chopped off their hardtop and made it removable. However, he said that it looks like it was originally made this way and has a stock-looking release crank and hardware. This not a kid who sold his honda for a Ghia, but an established man in his forties or so who has other classic cars.

Did Karmann ever build a removable hardtop Ghia?

Paul

[Gary]

Custom build.

[Karmann Gheezer]

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4326505&highlight=#4326505
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[retrowagen]

They actually did, in 1961, for Wihlelm Karmann's sister, Else. It was based on a blue Cabriolet off the assembly line. The hardtop was made of metal and internally reinforced with a framework of tubing, and looked rather similar to a 1990-1999 Mazda Miata's optional removable hardtop.

Hardtop Cabriolet Prototype studies were undertaken by Karmann in 1958, late 1960 (Else's car), and again in 1968, but the modifications required to a standard Cabriolet (whose folded top we all know protrudes so significantly above the bodywork of the car) made it too cost-prohibitive to incorporate a folding top (to the high standard of a Karmann folding top) and the handworking involved on the hardtop itself made it too expensive for Karmann to offer - it would have been a separate model besides the standard Cabriolet and standard Coupe.

As to the provenance of thie car in the OP's story: I think it would be highly unlikely that it were a "factory" product, although I think it would be probable that a very good coachbuilder in Germany (equivalent to a body shop in the USA) could easily have come up with one by cutting the roof off a Coupe and refitting it to the same Coupe, incorporating body and roof structural reinforcements and a rudimentary (a'la Porsche Speedster or MG) uninsulated canvas top.
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David Ruby
President, Karmann-Ghia World Club

[hpw]

[Altema]

[Mark33563]

[Altema]

[Mark33563]

if anything, the removable hard top has less of a blind spot.

I do agree with you, too much of one color. The large amount of glass on the sedan does break it up a bit....perhaps that is why the '50s corvettes had chrome trim on their removable hard tops.

I do not like white cars either. Prefer darker colors (black, drk blue, burgundy, etc.) but to each their own. It is not my car, so I don't have to like the color.

I always thought a removable hard top for a Ghia would be a neat 'option' to have. I like what they have created but I no longer have a Ghia convertible...
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"That's an ultra-rare Dung Beetle... in reverse, it rolls up giant balls of crap. " - Dave24

[wolfgang klinkert]

[retrowagen]

[Gary]

[Altema]

[wolfgang klinkert]

[retrowagen]

[BulliBill]

Karmann made a prototype convertible with a removable hardtop to sell the hardtop idea to VWAG, and it was (is?) still in their private museum in Osnabruke. (I'm guessing from memory that it is the blue one in the photo above. I've seen it person at least three times (1995, 1997 and 1999), dark-ish blue in color, absolutely awesome car! It had the convertible soft top tucked into the body and the hardtop fit over that. From what I remember of the museum signage on the car, I think it was a 1957 or 1958-ish lowlight body which featured the proposed upcoming body changes to the front and rear end for 1960 and on. Awesome prototype! I bet I have video that I shot in 10mm format somewhere of that car and the others in that museum, very hard back then to get in there for a tour.

Now that VWAG owns Karmann, I wonder what happened to all of those crazy Karmann-built cars in that museum? I hope they are all still tucked away in Osnabruke! There is a coffee-table book on the Karmann collection, in German I believe, that might show that removable hardtop prototype...

Bill Bowman
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I'm looking for these license plate frames for my fleet:
Coeur D'Alene - Lake Shore Volkswagen
Mission VW - San Fernando
Thornton VW - Stockton

Thanks for any help!

[John Moxon]

[lowbuck72]

Not factory, but should have been

[bobbyblack]

I bought a '74 back when I was just out of college (aka the 80's) from a kid in another frat. He wanted $300, and I let him wait for a while, as he had been on his way to a keg-er and somehow flipped the Ghia in the ditch. Must have hooked the front right on a stump or something. Anyway, My brother had a couple as well, and one of those became a donor for the top. I drove it for a bunch of years with the top welded at the front, and clamped at the rear, until I got more cars and that one became less of my driver. Anyway, I cut the top a few inches behind the windshield, and unclamped the rest and set that aside. Just an open air car now. Now its been 20 odd years, but it is time to start working out how to clamp the front edge back together, like marine clamps, some kind of gasket like on a 'vert, and rear hook points, etc. Well.. Maybe I will fit in between the '63 Notch and the '64 Deluxe restores.

Looking for a couple pointers.

1: clamps and gasket ideas for front edge.
2: gasket for top to body seal, would be from rear edge of driver door to rear edge of passenger door, a big U shaped thing. The donor top just rests down on top of the former rear window sills. Had some double sided tape on it back when.
3: ideas on rear attachment method, something the rear of the top would slide into then lower the front down to clamp that down. Maybe the other way around would be better tho, a hook up front then lower and clamp the rear down?

Im so-so with a MIG, but with time, I can get things to look OK.
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'87 Westy 'Flossie','86 Westy 'R1','86 tintop GL - Subi2.2 'J2','83.5 stock tintop L 'ZoomBus','74 Karmann Ghia, '63 Notch

[lowbuck72]

Hi, I got some heavy sheet steel and boxed in the top of the windshield frame. i started y making templates out of cardboard. Then, after I laid the top on, it had about a half inch overlap on the windshield frame. Then I took a piece of 2 x 4 and cut the narrow edge to match the contour of the inside of the roof. Then I bonded it to the roof. Then I made steel dowels out of lag screws, screwing them into the wood where it meets the reinforced windshield frame. I cut the heads off the screws, and rounded the remaining edge. Then I drilled holes in the windshield frame to line up with the dowels. It's a snug fit, and I glued down some felt on the underside of the roof where it mates, which eliminated any wind noise. Then I added some latches. I did essentially the same thing under the quarter windows with steel dowels welded in pointing down.