Want trouble, then buy this!
 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6330&item=4543519400&rd=1

Anyone who knows how a sedan and convertible are designed and built (the right way) would not even consider buying this.

I am particularly fond of this line:

• Despite the customization, the car is solid. No noticeable structural issues affect the handling. The car cruises. :rolleyes:

Unless the frame has been seriously reinforced, then cutting the roof of of a sedan will lead to a car which is very weak and probably dangerous to drive. Take this one over a railroad crossing and see how solid it is. I've owned convertibles that were designed as convertibles and were still not rigid. The best convertible I have ever driven is the MB SL which was designed and built to be a roadster and you cannot tell when driving it that it is anything less than solid.

This one, in short, is probably no more than a parts car now. :mad:

So this is probably not a good idea :(

It least that one looks like it has a vertical stabilizer ;)

This was a trend with little pickup trucks a few years back. I call them can-opener convertibles. In an accident it is deathtrap most likely.

Well, maybe the fact these cars still don't look like bananas is testimony to the fact that old MB's are indeed the strongest cars ever built.

Dave

Creative photo editing hides the 5th wheel castor under the middle of the car.... :eek:

Weld a roll bar in the middle and I would take it! With all the sheet metal in this model mercedes I doubt it lost a lot of structural integrity. I absolutely agree it would be an awful idea in a modern unibody with every extra ounce of weight removed. Not a great idea here but probably not as bad as you would think. These cars are not roll prone but why take chances!

On that note, I know someone who has a late 70's VW Scirocco that was chopped into a permanent convertible. The car has no structural reinforcement and it's so weak that with two people in the car the body flexes too much so the doors are jammed shut. So essentially the car uses the doors are a structural member and should not be opened. I can imagine hard braking just snapping the frame in two! :eek:

I would expect that this car has similar problems. Structurally the roof and pillars are an element which prevents torsion and bending of the entire car. I would be interested to know, for example, if the MB SL topless weighs more than the SLC (its hardtop cousin), I would bet it does because the SL is probably heavily reinforced throughout its body to make up for the loss of the top.

It's like expecting a box section, after you cut the top off and turn it into a channel section to be just as strong in bending and torsion, it just won't be.

These MB bodies, as I understand, are also unibody construction with no "frame" per-se. Just because they were "overbuilt" you cannot say that the extra margin of safety they had makes up for removing the top. I would bet money that if you parked that car on an irregular surface that the doors would not open and close correctly because the body is flexing. Maybe going down a dead-level highway you won't feel it but try an evasive move at 70 MPH and this thing would not handle it very well.

Good point, through a tight slalom run the car would probably experience some Tacoma Narrows bridge action :D

The real test for the x-Benz would be to pile a bunch of folks into it and see if the doors will still shut/latch.

A long, long time ago, on a planet far away....I owned a TR-6. That daggone thing was so limber that if you pulled off the road onto the shoulder with one wheel off the pavement (it spent a lot of time like that), you had to really be careful closing the hood because the chassis would twist enough to misalign the hood opening.

What a piece of junk.

There are a few W123 diesel convertable conversions out there that were built correct, and those come up on ebay from time to time, but they tend to go for close to$20,000 :eek: This one on ebay scares me a little, but I have seen many kids in my area cut the tops off there cars :eek:

No matter what it is foolish to turn one of the old Mercedes diesels into a convertible. It would be to loud, prone to smell and it is just not a fun car. My sunroof gives me all the sun and wind I need! A little work with some heavy steal bars and a good welder could fix most structural problems. The trick if finding good places to weld or bolt the bars to the frame. Does any one know if VW makes their Cabriolet in a TDI. Now that would be cute!

It might be a fun thing to buy for cruising the main and going to the beach but not something you could seriously use. But if it goes cheap enough, why not buy it for laughs, and at the end of the summer call it a parts car.

Check the pic where it has a bicycle in the back the front bumper looks like its twisted