BS: Pop Top Cars

20 Jul 11 - 01:21 PM (#3191472)
Subject: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Reading an old Literary Digest magazine for 1915 (I am slightly behind in my reading), I saw an add for the KisselKar, a four-door with a removable hard top.
"The all-year car, a Kissel idea, supplies for the first time the comfortable and continuous every-day use of one car the year 'round without sacrificing appearance or refinement. A closed car in winter-- a touring car in summer."

Some sports cars have mechanical hard tops (BMW for one), and several in the past have had removable hard tops, but the Kissel is the only one I have found that has a top for a four-door sedan.
"Tops can be quickly attached and detached in your own garage as often as weather conditions dictate."

Perhaps car buffs can tell me of others.

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20 Jul 11 - 03:00 PM (#3191531)
Subject: RE: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: gnu

Thread drift... I was lookin at a Jeep and asked about air conitioning. Buddy said the top and the doors come off. I said that would really suck if it was raining and the sticker price was more that an F-150 4X4 with AC. He said that they sell a lot of Jeeps to kids that think the Jeep is cool. I said, I ain't a kid.

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20 Jul 11 - 05:29 PM (#3191639)
Subject: RE: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

I have the Jeep Laredo SUV, excellent on mountains or highway, but I wouldn't want the little jeep. Also too oldt too soon.

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20 Jul 11 - 05:41 PM (#3191649)
Subject: RE: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: Bobert

The International Scout... I owned one... Great car... I had a tonue (sp) cover made for mine so I didn't have to mess with the hardtop in the summer...

B~

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20 Jul 11 - 05:57 PM (#3191656)
Subject: RE: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Reminds me of another International of long ago. The little pickup of the 1930s. The forest rangers in the area in which I lived drove them. A good off-road vehicle of its day.
Not a removable top, though.

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20 Jul 11 - 09:27 PM (#3191746)
Subject: RE: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: JohnInKansas

The Army used Scouts for administrative vehicles at the Yuma AZ Ordnance Test Station where I spent a couple of years. When it came time to take a vehicle up to Flagstaff for some "high altitude" testing, everyone who'd ever been there warned that the Scouts "wouldn't run fer SH*T" up there.

They had been trying to persuade the maintenance boys to "re-jet" the carburetors for the high altitude, but it took about 3.4 minutes when we got to the test area for me to find out what the real problem was.

The float bowl on the carburetor was on the front side, and whenever the nose started UP a grade of about 20% or more the fuel spilled out of the float bowl into the carb throat. Of course the engine flooded and died. Average grade on the mountain (off the roads) was 36 - 38%.

So I turned around and drove backwards every time I had to go uphill for the next three weeks. Ran like a scorched cat, as long as you kept its nose down.

I got a stiff neck and some serious bruises in the armpit from leaning out the window to miss (most of) what was behind me.

The "solution" was obvious for anyone who was less than a couple of generations downstream from the Model T, since one of its most notorious habits was inability to drive uphill. The reason was different - gravity feed from a fuel tank behind the engine and only a little above the carb, so the fuel flow stopped when the nose went up. Solution was the same: turn around and back up the hill.

Note that I have no idea whether the "GI" Scouts were all that similar to commercial models. The ones at Yuma were pretty much skeletal. (Needless to say they weren't air conditioned, but we never saw anything above about 116 F actual while I was there - except down in some of the gullies.)

John

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20 Jul 11 - 10:17 PM (#3191759)
Subject: RE: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: Songwronger

The first Thunderbirds had lift-off hardtops.

1955 Thunderbird hardtop

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20 Jul 11 - 11:31 PM (#3191781)
Subject: RE: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: Gurney

I suppose that we are thinking of soft-top cars which have an additional hard-top for Winter? There were several British sports cars like this, and I think there were aftermarket hard-tops for others, most popularly the MGA series. Oh, and the Mini-Moke.

Anything else is asking for a wetting.

Bobert: Tonneau.

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20 Jul 11 - 11:39 PM (#3191784)
Subject: RE: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker

just a little more thread creep seeing as this has jogged cherished memories,
of hazards owning open-top sports cars..


It was a rare lovely sunny afternoon, so imagine my delight to find an open top luxury sports car
ostentatiously parked out front of a local seaside bar;
and no exagerating the luxury, this was a brand new mega expensive Lamborghini
or some other similar elite top range millionaires dream car.

I'm a life long cyclist and pedestrian, and hard core lefty campaigner for public transport provision;
never even bothered taking a driving test...

Even so, despite my extremist transport ideology I'm still a relatively normal bloke,
and can still appreciate the aesthetic beauty of such a wonderful machine,
but...

it's obvious this fantastic vehicle did not belong to anyone local...

1 - few people within many miles of town could afford to own it

2 - only an out of towner would would park and leave such a valuable open top car unattended
directly under the main feeding flight path and hovering zone
of hundreds of flocking seagulls.

Unfortunately I could not hang around idly long enough to see look on the owners face
when he eventually returned to discover his amazing gleaming brand new paint finish,
the luxury leather seats and plush interior carpet,
devastated under a thick spattering of sticky fishy gull shit ....

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21 Jul 11 - 11:39 PM (#3192409)
Subject: RE: BS: Pop Top Cars
From: Gurney

In my home town, it would probably attract a more human deposit.

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