During our recent cold and snowy weather, I noticed this Mustang convertible ahead with a lot of flapping plastic as it drove down the street on an ugly day.
Not only was the “top” sporting various patches, but apparently the side window was out of commission too. Ugh! And so much for any visibility out of that side window. My sympathies are with you…
I’ll bet that Summer seems a long way off! Luckily my old rag tops have been at the duct tape intervention stage of decline when I got them. Today, looking out the window we’ve got clear blue skies and 60 degrees. Gotta love the SF Bay Area. I know that you remember Paul.
Ooohhh, that is bad and I take it those photos were taken after the snow started to thaw. Here in Tualatin the snow stuck around for a week until it finally warmed up enough for it all to melt.
Sometimes Oregon rivals Tennessee and Kentucky for most broken down and/or hoopties still under their own power seen on a daily basis especially during the first hot or cold snap. I once saw three 1970s F-Series broken down during my commute.
1 week? gee wee had snow for about 3 weeks. unusual for Vancouver a area that rarely gets snow and when it does it is gone in a few days
The parking lots in Vancouver USA still have mounds of snow piles left over from the plows.
john9226@juno.com
Hey, as a transplanted Kentuckian, (origin, Pa.) take offense to hoopty car reference. I lived15+years in Florida, and saw the most ridiculous, sorry, POS rides as seen anywhere. Did you know in Fla. turn signals are not required? an actual stable car body is not required? Had a co-worker who had a mid 70’s Cutlass that was so eaten up by rust that the outer skin was gone over 75% of the car. Another had an old Road Runner that was rear ended before he bought it. As in TRUNK SMASHED IN UP TO THE BACK WINDOW!! Tailights somewhere in that mangled rear end mess? Good to go! Believe me Ky. is NOT the worst.
That doesn’t look very safe for driving during any season, never mind winter.
Top excepted, that’s a rather fetching Fox! My favorite vintage. (1985-ish?)
Hope it’s owner can supply a new top, choice interior bits and glass soon! The right dose of TLC would go a long way on that one.
It’s an ’87 to ’93, but with those 15″ wheels I’m inclined to say it’s ’90 or newer.
Seeing this has pretty much diminished any latent desire for a convertible for the next ten to fifteen minutes.
And driving a Miata on I-5 (or I-84) with the tire stud and chain damage for two hours will turn you into Jack Torrance from The Shining. Oregon seriously needs to fix it.
Ha! What Jason said. 🙂
And Jack Torrance… yikes!! All that snow kinda reminds me of Dick Halloran’s rental (was it a LeSabre)?
I certainly feel for the driver, but perhaps the backstory here is more dramatic than it seems. The late, great Robert B. Parker’s Spenser character drove a convertible with a patched top – a Camaro, I think – in his early days. Maybe this is a hard-boiled private eye off to solve his or her first big case against impossible odds.
Reality just continues to interfere with the lives that we try to live.
Makes me so glad, my 88 Mustang LX 5.0 is a notchback. 😛
The original top of my ’66 Bonneville convertible (which I’d driven since 1974) started deteriorating fast around 1985, and finally I tore the whole thing off and drove it with just the frame up. Unfortunately this attracted police attention, as it was during winter in Minneapolis (my home at the time). I was obliged to rent a garage, separately rent a huge propane-fueled heater, and disassemble/reassemble the frame (including repainting each part after sandblasting) and teach myself how to install a new top. Luckily the public library had all the relevant GM shop manuals for 1966 B bodies; I still have the photocopies somewhere.
I had a 66′ Bonneville 2 door hardtop and if you even cracked the window above 60 mph it was a friggin’ tornado in there so it must have been wild for you.
It might not be his only car. Its a nice collectable car, roof aside and won’t hold up long with a roof like that. Maybe the winter beater broke down and he needs wheels, forcing him to drive the project car for a bit. Happened to me a few times.
I feel for the guy/gal if you don’t have the skill or patience to install a convertible top (Good for you gottacook) it is an expensive repair. Just over $2,000 for my 84 Mustang GT.
Ouch. I wondered how much a replacement top would be; there were some online for only $150, but I assume that’s for the top material alone, and not high quality material either.
I should clarify.
The material and glass window, not plastic was about $400 CDN. The balance of the cost was labour and a metal piece that had to be replaced. Oh yeah and sales tax. I was also very lucky to get one of the few white convertible tops for an 84 Mustang. I want d to stay with the original colour.
I don’t recall what the replacement top cost me in 1986 – it came with all necessary shims, padding, etc. – but I do remember that if I wanted a glass rear window like the original had, it would have cost me nearly twice as much.
I remember being quoted a cost of $1400-1500 to replace the top on my 1988 Mustang in late 1994; a good chunk of that was for the labor, the top itself was around $325 or so. As the car also needed around $2000 in other repairs to restore it to top condition I foolishly traded it away on a lesser Mustang, a move I regretted almost immediately and still regret till this day. If I could have a do-over I would buy a cheap beater to drive to work while I saved up the money to fix the Mustang.
Convertibles can be a hassle to drive in winter even if the top isn’t being held together with duct tape. Eventually almost all of them will develop leaks somewhere; the ’88 Mustang I mentioned above would drip water on the driver’s left knee. The odd thing was that it didn’t leak all of the time, sometimes it would remain watertight in a downpour and other times it would drip in a heavy dew.
After we both retired my wife and I decided that we needed another open car and purchased a 2014 Mustang convertible about 18 months ago. The great thing is that if the weather is too bad the Mustang can just remain in the garage; it has been driven in the rain but only when absolutely necessary. It has never been out in the snow, at least not on our watch, and it never will be.
The replacement top for my Saab is $2500 with labor being 80% of the cost. Ouch. I’m fortunate in that it’s a weekend-only car and used for backup, so a new roof isn’t a priority at this point.
I do wish I had stronger mechanical skills to where I felt confident enough to take a day off and do the labor myself…
My fourth car was a $70 1954 Austin Healey 100-4. You know how clapped out it was. It had an after market fiberglass hardtop with no headliner and a petrified plexiglass rear window. On day it flew off at 35 to 40 MPH and soared up 20 feet before crash landing. Amazingly the rear window survived and we glassed it all back together.
After a year I found another 1954 100-4 with a good body and no engine. It had a functional soft top, along with the joys of side curtains in the winter. The faster you went the more they bowed out.
In December of 1970 I bought a 1963 TR4. as my daily driver The rear window soon broke and was replaced neatly with plastic glazing material from the hardware store. I had no money for a new top. You good see through the new window, but it rattled in the wind, and you could not remove snow or ice except by gentle taps on the inside. My friend referred to it as a bread wrapper.
I took over my daughter’s 1990 Sunbird convertible when she got another car. It was NOISY, and probably had an air leak (or 2), but I drove it winter and summer.
Granted, its top was in perfect condition. And the power windows (usually) worked.
The late, great George Carlin once said ” If you loan someone $20, and never see them again, it was probably worth it” We might have found our someone….
The World really needs George Carlin now. R.I.P.
The pictorial answer to the question “Why are old convertibles so rare?” It was bad enough that they were built in small numbers, but then nearly every one eventually hit this stage when a new top was more than the value of the car, causing it to be abandoned outside and eventually lost to the elements.
Exactly. At the moment there sits in my driveway a 1975 Grandville convertible, covered by a tarp in the Michigan winter. The last time the top was put up was in the mid 90’s; there wasn’t much left of it at that time. Last time I checked on a new top it was 3K+ ; the car on a good day is maybe worth half of that, to the right buyer. It still starts and runs and stops well, though. I try to drive it at least once a year.
I think old rag tops tend to have the highest survival rate of any body style. Once they get past the age of daily driver status and become sunny day occasional use vehicles, the top doesn’t matter since it never goes up or the car becomes a valuable “classic” that makes it worth replacing the rag in the rag top.
Ah yes…snow and convertibles. One of my friends in NY told me a story where he was looking for his car the morning after a heavy snowstorm the night before. He saw a car covered all over with snow and inside the car. Poor schmuck had left the top down. Upon closer look he realized it was HIS car and he was the poor schmuck who forgot to put the top up.
Another friend in California had a convertible who swore it could predict the weather (at least wherever he was): with the top was up, it was sunny; whenever he put it down, it would start to rain.
Surely it can’t be safe to drive a vehicle like this, where’s your visibility when you can only mostly see out the windshield? Should be off the road IMO.
I had the same thought, plus all that plastic flapping in the wind has to be a distraction in its own right. Hopefully they’re just moving the car to a nice heated garage for a restoration. We can dream, anyway.
During the ’80s, I worked with a guy who drove a totally beat-up green ’69 Pontiac GTO. His convertible top was a wreck too. So finally, using huge amounts of bondo and duct-tape over the rag-top’s remains, he converted it into a hardtop. He must’ve had a hundred pounds off goop and tape up there and it looked atrocious! But at least he was drier and warmer than before.
Regarding just plain joe’s ’88 Mustang, I drove a ’67 Sunbeam Alpine roadster through most of the ’80s, and it used to leak on my left knee too – ironically, not from the top. Water would seep in through the dried-up windshield gasket, and run off the dash. I often carried a heavy towel, folded up over my leg. If the trip wasn’t too long, it would soak up most of the water before it reached my pants.
If I ever get another convertible, I gotta have a garage!
Happy Motoring, Mark
And this clearly shows why any Rag Top over ten years old usually has rusty floors, even in Los Angeles .
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I used to get sand bagged by old Convertibles, buy and resurrect them but almost never flopped the top after the first few months and almost always sold then at a dead loos to some enthusiastic sucker .
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It took my into my late forties before I’d walk past a $500 Drop Top.
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My buddy Conrad (R.I.P. Friend) grew up not far from me in Maine and one July in 1959 a neighbor offered him a pristine 1954 Chevy Rag Top for $125 ~ being a broke High School Student he jumped on it and much fun was had until late Summer when he discovered how ass chappingly cold is gets inside any un padded top Convertible in _MAINE_….
He hated that damn car and it refused to die for five long years……
-Nate
The only rag top I had was a 88 2.3 Mustang metalic blue with white top and white letter interior. The top was already giving up when I bought the car… thank God for the duct tape!!!
I felt his pain earlier this week. Some nutcase decided to go on a window smashing rampage in the neighborhood the other night. Smashed the window out of my Camry. I couldn’t get an appointment for repair until the next day, so I had to break out the trashbags and duct tape. Drove me insane. The rippling of the plastic in the wind, lack of visibility and cold air rushing in was too much for me. 24 hours later and $250 it was repaired.
I see folks who will drive the car with smashed out windows for extended periods of time. I don’t know how they do it. My sympathies are with the Mustang owner.