Is it legal?

[NFSracer]

Is it legal to make say a car like a dodge neon or someother car into a convertable?? A soft top or a hard top?? thnx

[Justin Martin]

In the US, it would depend on the state, different states have different regs. But i've never heard of a state that wouldn't pass a car that is a conversion like that. I know it would in Texas. I don't know about Canadian regs though.

Having said that, I have to say one other thing, if you're thinking about converting a Neon or almost any other car into a convertible, you're nuts. :D

Aside from having to fabricate a top from scratch, which would be a major task, modern cars that aren't designed to have convertible varients from the start get so much stiffness from the roof that many will collapse just from cutting the roof off. I don't know if you've ever been around old convertibles, but back in the '60s, convertibles had very little body stiffness. If you parked one with a wheel up on a curb, the body would twist so badly that the doors wouldn't open. Cut the roof off a Neon, and it'll do that on level pavement. You would probably even notice the center of the car hanging down a bit closer to the ground, like a Daschound with a broken back.

Just to make it work, you'll have to add a huge amount of structure to stiffen the chassis, which will add alot of weight. And you can't just throw metal in there to stiffen the chassis, it has to be properly placed to work effectively. In the end, you'll have an overweight, poorly engineered car that drives so bad you'll hate it.

If you want a convertible, buy a Miata. They are well engineered, reliable cars that handle like a dream, and early ones are cheap also, well under $5000 USD.

[Commander]

No, but once you remove the roof, you sacrifice a lot of the rigidity of the car, so you would need to weld several reinforcements on various parts of the car. These weldings would need to be done and inspected by a licensed professional before the car would be passed for road use. Same applies to chopped motorcycles.

[NFSracer]

what about a t top?? I think that's what it's called?? where theres 2 squares cut out above the driver and the passenger?? would that just weeken the car just as much??

[Ashwin91]

Well a T-Top most likely won't affect the chassis much,usually.But i'm not totally sure.

[Justin Martin]

Simply cutting t-tops out will also substantially weaken a car, though not as much as cutting the whole top off. Most of the support the roof adds is in the solid rails that form the outside edge of the roof. Basically, on each side of the car, the roof structure starts at the a-pilllar, and continues in one solid structure back to the c-pillar.

There are a few pieces of structure that connect the two sides, but in the middle, the roof is mostly just a thin piece of steel. In other words, the critical structure is on the outside, which you will cut out in doing your t-tops conversion.

Factory built, and well done aftermarket t-top conversions, add additional structure around the t bar to make up for the removed structure on the outside. The thin sheetmetal on the roof is not sufficently strong to keep the car from collapsing like the aforementioned Daschound with a broken back.

And it is definently not something that can be done by do-it-yourselfers. There are shops that will do it properly, but it's going to be expensive.

As I said before, if you want a convertible, buy a convertible. If you want t-tops, either buy a car with t-tops or be prepared to shell out big bucks to have it done right. Shade tree mechanic hack jobs don't work, period.

[Commander]

Well said Justin! The T-tops on my car, even though they are factory, still makes the car prone to twisting. In order to cope with the thunderous torque from the 406, I needed to install subframe connectors to keep the car from becoming a pretzel.