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

Are you guys kidding me?
I'm gonna bid on that jewel!
...until it goes over $400, that is

Back in '92, in Cupertino, CA, I saw a w123 converted to an "El Camino".

I wish I'd had a camera on me, at the time.

It looks good!!
 

I have to say I like the way it looks. However, I have to agree that a diesel convertible would be a little noisy.

I am surprised that you can sell a vehicle like that in the People's Republic of Kalifornication. They have laws against everything else, seems like they would require a vehicle to pass a safety inspection for a legal sale. Guess they haven't thought of that one yet. Maybe all they care about is an emissions inspection.

People's Republic of Kalifornication...you make that sound as if the entire state was Berkeley ;) The diesels don't get checked unless they're from out of state as I understand so you can get away with a lot. The police have enough freeway shootings, domestic disputes, gangs, drug dealers, and so forth and therefore vehicle compliance is pretty low on the list. Heck they don't even check for tags.....some cars around here have 2002 tags on them! Insurance? Not a chance. :(

A four door convertible??? Hmmmm. Why didn't they at least find an old 300C instead? It might even have more structure, not that it would really mean anything. Either are still not structurally fit!

That is a good point made about the weight difference between the SL and SLC. Bare in mind, the SLC is 14" longer then the SL. I'll see if I cant find some info about that.

Wonder where he dreamed up the DX series comment.....Guess he was hanging arond the honda crowd too much.

Ever Notice he also said "Unfinished" now thats a scarey statement.

What is with this "K" stuff about California? Isn't that about racists wearing hoods? Or is that supposed to be some jab about this state being communist? Has anyone taken a look at who the elected officials are here?
Diametricalbenz, you clearly live in LA. What you say may be true for there, but I know plenty of places where a taillight out is WAY high on the list. Check for tags? You have expired plates where I live, they impound the car.
In fact, California is such a huge and varied state politically, that it is foolhardy to try to sum it up in any way. We have high desert, ocean, rolling forests, redwoods, snow capped summits. Huge cities and way out remote regions. :cool:
It is a darn nice place. Can't be nutshelled, that's for sure. If y'all have never seen it, it comes highly recommended.
And no, diesels have not emmisions requirements. but who does?

He's got it all.

Jimmy Joe,

I actually don't "clearly" live in LA. I am from the 580/680 Bay Area corridor. I live here because of work reasons and I eventually would like to move back cause LA stresses me out. :( I know not all of California is not Los Angeles and not Berkeley and not SF Castro District. CA is great that is has a huge amount of diversity both ethnically, politically (arguable) and environmentally which is why I like this state because I can get to snow, desert, the Sierras, ocean, wineries :D in less than one day's drive and I completely agree with you on that :) I wasn't nutshelling it at all. It seems as if some others do and so I was trying to make a point that we're not all the same ;)

As for the diesel inspection, I believe I read somewhere that the car had to be initially inspected if the car was bought from out of state for mileage, safety etc. :confused:

I though he was just quoting the Red Hot Clili Pepers with the Kalifornication thing....

I asked him a question:
"What modifications have been done to strengthen the vehicle when the roof was removed?"
His Reply He acknowledges that there is rust.
I wouldn't trust it to go thru a carpark with speed humps!

Don't bump into a garbage can......or run over a rabbit with that thing...it will fold like a pretzle.

That thing most definately needs additional reinforcement.

No pictures from the side of all 4 doors open....wonder why :)

You'd be surprised how much the flimsy roof helps the structural integrity of the whole car. I used to be a dismantler and when we would cut a roof off of a car, or even cut one pillar for that matter, the whole car became a wobbly POS. I guarantee if you were to shove this car from the side it would wobble and flex tremendously. I'll bet if you open one of those back doors and put some downward force on it, it would easily bend out of alignment. Sit on the damn door and it would probably bend all the way to the ground. :shocked2:

It looks really classy!
 

I am considering picking up a cheap 123 coupe and cutting off the roof. I have TIG welding equipment and would add longitudinal box channels to the rocker panels and add diagonal bracing at the door jambs, tying into the longitudinal channels. I would also add lateral bracings between the tops of the springs at the front, as well as the rear. Not really sure how to go about this. Do I need to be talked out of this?


I've already read a thread about this, but there was no technical advice: http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/92903-ok-i-know-crazy-but-%85%85-2.html?highlight=cut+roof

Thanks,
Robert

"People's Republic of Kalifornication"

I took it for a jumble of pop culture references, the People's Republic is an old one, Californication a song, and a long time ago it was considered kool to turn all your c's into k's as in the Kalifornia Kustom Kar era at George Barris's Kustom City ( too bad about the sibilant C in City).

Here's web site of George Barris the King of the Kustomisers, check it out it's a riot.

http://www.barris.com/index.html

This car has no top. It's a true "faux" convertible.

A 123 with it's roof chopped off is pretty. Pretty undividable.