Let’s Drastically Change The Looks Of Some Convertibles With Special Hardtops

If you bought a convertible, would the top spend most of its life bundled up behind the cockpit, or deployed over your head? Unless you’re an extremely hearty soul, I’m betting the top will most frequently be in roof mode for Autopians reading this site in the majority of the USA and Canada. In my neck of the woods, I would certainly be in top-up mode for most drives.

If you do brave the elements in your ragtop during snow removal season, a good option might be installing a rigid hardtop on your pride and joy for the time between Halloween and six weeks after the groundhog has seen his shadow. With a firm roof bolted in place, you’ll be able to enjoy the winter in cozy warmth without having to drive in a Snuggie or purchase a clapped-out Dodge Dynasty as a winter beater, selected purely for its ability to throw heat.

Recently, Thomas showed us a hardtop for a Porsche that not only kept the chills away but also dramatically changed the appearance of the car. Note that I didn’t say it necessarily improved the looks.

This concept got me thinking: how many other open-topped cars out there could I screw up or accidentally improve by doing the same?

Stopping The Drop

Convertibles in general are a dying breed; only 0.6 percent of new cars sold now have opening roofs, which is down from around 2 percent in the mid-2000s. The Ford Mustang is one of the last remaining convertibles, and 2023 sales were down a whopping 87 percent from 2001. Somehow having a car with a cloth body part (where a big knife could allow access to someone’s valuables) has less appeal these days where, in most areas, it’s either too hot or too cold to open up to the sky anyway. Today, with air conditioning standard on virtually every model, most people just use their car as just one more place to talk on the phone.

In the late 1990s we thought that convertible hardtops would be the way of the future: the best of both worlds. However, by the close of the 2000s many buyers found the ‘best of both worlds’ came at a heavy price both financially and in terms of cargo space, since all that glass and sheetmetal has to go somewhere when it’s down. The mechanisms can be notoriously costly and complex to put right if they fail mid-cycle in a rainstorm.

Of course, some luxury cars like old Mercedes SLs and Cadillac Allante offered simpler removeable factory hardtops for the cold months, though they required two strong workers or a hoist in the garage that you would assume someone with $90,000 to buy a car in 1989 would have access to.

Convertibles were once a status symbol, so much so that numerous companies even leaned into the idea of making silly fake ones during the malaise era when drop tops were going to be subject to a ban by the NHTSA rollover standards that never happened. At least the early canvas “carriage roofs” as stuck on this steel-roofed Bill Blass Lincoln Mark V were sort of convincing:

In some ways, having a steel or fiberglass hardtop on your convertible negates this visual “advantage”. For the most part, convertible hardtops (and, of course, the manually removed ones) don’t actually change the appearance of the car much at all; once installed, it now just looks like you bought some run-of-the-mill coupe.

What if the hardtop did actually make a drastic alteration to your car’s styling when it was installed? As Thomas mentioned, there’s at least one example of this out there.

 Is That A Porch? Well, It Sort Of Has A Porch Now

Something didn’t look right. The picture of the Porsche Cayman that Thomas posted seemed sort of off, like it was one of those AI images where people have six fingers on each hand.

The reason? It turns out this wasn’t a Cayman at all, but instead an old Boxster with an aftermarket hardtop. This makes sense since there was never a Cayman version of the first series Boxster from the factory. Thomas’s research found this hardtop on ebay that also replaces the trunk lid to help with the visual ruse (and if you don’t mind being blind to the rear you also have space to stuff a few extra duffel bags behind the headrests):

As Thomas pointed out in the post, the end result looks good from afar but is far from good, with a cornucopia of panel gaps and the expected limitations of a non-factory creation.

Many people might cry out “just get a Cayman, dammit,” but if you’re debating whether or not to spend three grand on a giant lid for your first-gen Boxster then you probably don’t have the budget for a real Cayman anyway. Also, a real Cayman couldn’t take advantage of those rare, nice summer days here in the frozen tundra since the top is permanent.

No, I think the idea of a stretched-to-the-bumper hardtop is sound, but why not use the opportunity to give your car an altered appearance just for fun during an extremely not-fun time of year? Hell, we might even improve the functionality as well as the looks. Or one out of those two. Or neither. Aw, screw it, let’s get to work on a few examples!

Mustang King Cargo (not Mustang Ranch)

The Mustang has seen a variety of different body styles over the years, and for some reason Ford has sort of taken a step backwards in that area since the much-loved Fox platform. The ultra-popular generation of 1979-93 ‘Stang came in a convertible, a notchback coupe and an ultra-versatile hatchback configuration.

Fold down the rear seat and it’s amazing how much junk you could fit in the trunk. Look at all that space!

Today, the lineup of the last actual car that Ford builds has been reduced to a convertible and a fastback similar to the first generations of Mustang in the sixties, where all of your cargo needs to be jammed through a small trunk opening. This is progress? Even the unfairly-hated Mustang II gave you a liftback, for Chrissake.

You couldn’t easily install an actual tailgate to access luggage on a 2025 fastback Mustang above, but we don’t need to; we’re going increase cargo space and access with a custom hardtop on the available convertible model.

My inspiration is the ultra-hot Pontiac Firebird Trans Am Type K “shooting brake” concept with glass gullwing cargo doors which Mercedes Streeter reported on a little while back.

We can get the same kind of thing out of a Mustang convertible with a trick fiberglass hardtop. That’s right: lower the top, roll down the rear quarter windows, remove the trunk lid, possibly add a few small secondary brackets and in short order the King Cargo Hardtop can fit in place. You still have a back seat, the trunk space is accessible via gullwing glass windows, and you can pile more cargo up higher (an optional net would keep your suitcases from flying forward during braking and killing you Tom Mix style). I even added optional “T-tops” to give you some open air during those spring months before you’re ready to remove the top for summer.

Here’s an animation of the before and after installation:

Like it or loathe it, with a King Cargo Hardtop you’ll stay much warmer during the winter and be able to carry all of those extra presents to Grandma’s house during the holidays that you couldn’t in convertible format. Hell, if you’ve been waiting for a modern Volvo 1800ES you might never remove it.

Chrysler Sebtre or SebFire

Thanks to Michael Scott on The Office, the frequent use by rental agencies in period, or just because it’s a descendent of the K-car LeBaron, the Chrysler Sebring convertible doesn’t get a lot of respect. As one of the last mainstream non-sports-car convertible holdouts, it isn’t deserving of such scorn. The Sebring was not an e46 330i Cabriolet but it was never meant to be. An affordable convertible with real rear seats and no enthusiast pretensions. Is that a crime?

Oddly enough, at one point Chrysler even tried to appeal to different price points by offering both a fabric convertible and a retractable hardtop option at the same time.

Naturally, neither of these versions looks dramatically different from a standard coupe bodystyle, but we can change that. Lower the sort top, take off the back license plate, lose the trunk lid, and our multi-piece fastback hardtop gets installed.

Animation here so you don’t have to scroll up and down or do a “spot the changes” game:

Wait, you say, I see what happened! You just made something that looks like a legendary Chrysler Crossfire that had a few too many Five Guys burgers! Yes, that’s exactly what I did.

Enjoy the winter months with a fastback style that gives the appearance of a Rolls Royce Spectre that you bought off of Temu or Alibaba.

You can even still access cargo in the trunk via a small lid; note that I added new backup lights flanking the repositioned license plate (a body-colored filler panel covers the old recess).

Why would we do this? Why not? For better or worse, the CrossSebring recalls the underappreciated gems of the Dumber Chrysler era all in one vehicle. Best of all, it’s easily reversible and your ragtop (if so equipped) will get a few months less exposure.

Jeep Grenadiator

The appearance of some vehicles really stirs your emotions and gets the “cool car” juices flowing in your brain. It’s a good idea to sort of deconstruct the visual triggers making that happen and see if we can recreate it to get lightning in a bottle.

Let’s take two quick examples. One is the 21 windows VW Type 2 Transporter “Bus” from the sixties that is today one of the slowest vehicles without a real heater one can spend six figures on. The other example is the early Land Rover Defender (and, of course, by association, the Ineos Grenadier have-they-no-shame ripoff).

What is the most salient feature that makes people respond so positively to these, and what makes them so unique and special? For me it has to be the tall roof with the extra windows up high. This trick makes these things just look so spacious inside, and that glass allows for extra light and great views on your adventures.

A Jeep Wrangler is one of those machines that can be outfitted with more different factory and aftermarket hats than you can find in a Starter store. There are multi-piece hardtops with removable panels, half-doors and even some odd-looking fastback options. I might be missing it, but I haven’t seen one yet that could easily provide that same high-roof skylit appearance of the European favorites above to really transform the Jeep into something special when you can’t have the top removed. I can fix that.

The “Grenadiator” hardtop concept here gives you a raised area over the back seat and cargo area, with a sunroof above the driver and front seat. Skylights and a taller rear window provide extra light and headroom for people and cargo, so much so that you almost wonder if there’s room in the cargo area for more seats since sitting more upright is now an option.

You’ll want the animation to see the subtle change:

Another possible design could play off of the two-door Land Rover Defender or even the faux off-road Matra Rancho:

I’ll still use the four-door Wrangler but we’ll mimic the large rear side windows and use black graphics to visually fool your eye:

You thought you really wanted an old Defender, but I’m willing to bet that for many it’s just that cool window roof you were after. Sure, we’re stealing designs, but the Wrangler is so prevalent now that it’s nice to do some customization to make you stand out, especially if that customization improves the functionality and passenger experience, right? Plus, now your Jeep no longer looks like the one a middle-aged mom down the street drives with ducks on the dash; there’s an air of sophistication now so people will think you’re a skilled, cultured explorer or diplomat in a Zaire. Or not.

It’s Two Cars In One!

With today’s on-board electronics, myriad safety devices and regulations, customizing even a twenty-year-old car is not nearly as easy as might have been for people our parents’ age. Hard to imagine, but aftermarket hardtops on convertibles might be the last window of opportunity for a budding George Barris in the modern world.

I’ve shown just a few examples of the damage you can do; what are some other convertible candidates you can think of for a design-changing makeover (good OR bad) with a custom hardtop?

A Ford Maverick Could Be The Affordable, Practical Convertible The Market Is Missing – The Autopian

This ‘Cayman’ Is Actually A Boxster Wearing A Hat You Can Get From AliExpress – The Autopian

Convertible SUVs And Crossovers Are Inevitable So We Might As Well Figure Out How To Make Them Work – The Autopian

Hate The Pointed Pyramid Roof On The Tesla CyberTruck? Let’s Chop It Off – The Autopian