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Hardtop

A hardtop is a term for a rigid, rather than canvas, automobile roof. It has been used in several contexts: detachable hardtops, retractable hardtop roofs, and the so-called convertible hardtop body style.

Detachable hardtops

Before the mid-1920s 90% of automobiles had open tops, with rudimentary (if any) weather protection provided by a convertible-type canvas top and celluloid or isinglass side curtains. Some automobile bodies had roofs that could be removed during the summer and reattached during the winter, although it was a cumbersome and laborious job. By the time of World War One some automakers offered a lift-off roof, typically with a wood frame, canvas or leather covering, and glass windows. These removable roofs, sometimes called a California top, were the forerunners of the detachable hardtop, offering security and weather protection comparable to a fixed-roof model when installed.

Following the ascendancy of steel tops for closed bodies in the 1930s, detachable hardtops with metal roofs began to appear. After World War Two, the availability of new types of plastic and fiberglass allowed lighter, easier to handle hardtops with much of the strength of a metal top.

In the 1950s and 1960s detachable hardtops were offered for various convertible sports cars and roadsters, including the 1955-1957 Ford Thunderbird and the Chevrolet Corvette. Because the convertible top mechanism is itself expensive, the hardtop is customarily offered as an additional, extra-cost option. On early Thunderbirds (and Corvettes through 1967), buyers could choose between a detachable hardtop and a folding canvas top at no additional cost, but paid extra for both.

Improvements in canvas tops have rendered the detachable hardtop less common in recent years, in part because the top cannot be stored in the vehicle when not in use, requiring a garage or other storage facility. Nonetheless, some open cars continue to offer it as an option.

Retractable hardtop

Since the 1930s the appeal of a solid roof that can be lowered or retracted at will has been obvious. Perhaps the first such "retrac" was the 1934 Peugeot Cabriolet 301 Eclipse, which had a one-piece metal roof that could be stowed beneath the clamshell rear deck. The operation was manual, not automatic; while the designers had originally intended the roof to be electrically operated, period motors and wiring proved inadequate for the task.

The first production car with a power-operated retractable hardtop was the 1957 Ford Skyliner. Its top merchanism used seven electric motors, 10 power relays, eight circuit breakers, and more than 600 feet (183 meters) of wiring to raise the decklid and lower the top beneath it. The process took about 40 seconds if everything was working properly. The "Retrac" was an impressive showpiece, but the top mechanism and its stowage space eliminated most luggage space with the top down, the system was heavy and quite complex, and the price was some US $437 above a conventional convertible and nearly twice that of a baseline Ford sedan. It was eliminated after 1959, although elements of its design were used in several later convertibles.

Mitsubishi revived the retractable hardtop in 1995 with the Mitsubishi 3000GT Spyder. Impressively engineered, the Spyder nevertheless cost nearly twice the price of comparable fixed-roof models, and only 1,618 were sold.

In recent years, however, European manufacturers have increasingly turned to the retractable hardtop, including Ford Focus, Mercedes SLK & new SL, Nissan Micra, Peugeot 206 cc and 307 cc, Renault Megane cc and Volkswagen Eos.

Pillarless hardtops

Hardtop (on a Pontiac Catalina) showing simulated convertible features.

The other automotive usage of the term "hardtop" is a body style known as the hardtop convertible. A hardtop convertible is a fixed-roof model designed to look like a convertible with the top raised. While some early models retained side window frames and B-pillars, by the 1950s most were pillarless hardtops, omitting the B-pillar (the roof support behind the front doors) and configuring the window frames, if any, to retract with the glass when lowered. Some hardtops took the convertible look even further, including such details as simulating a convertible-top framework in the interior headliner and shaping the roof to resemble a raised canvas top. By the late 1960s such modifications were often superseded by a simple vinyl roof.

A pillarless hardtop is inherently less rigid than a pillared body, requiring extra underbody strength to prevent shake. Production hardtops commonly shared the frame or reinforced body structure of the contemporary convertible model, which was already reinforced to compensate for the lack of a fixed roof. With such a reinforced frame, a hardtop was stronger and stiffer than a convertible, but both weaker and (because of the reinforcements) heavier than a pillared body.

There were a variety of hardtop-like body styles dating back to at least the 1920s, but the trend-setter for mass-production hardtops was General Motors, which launched two-door, pillarless hardtops in 1949 as the Buick Riviera, Oldsmobile Holiday, and Cadillac Coupe de Ville. They were purportedly inspired by the wife of a Buick executive who always drove convertibles, but never lowered the top. The hardtop became extremely popular in the 1950s, and by 1956 automakers offered hardtop coupés, four-door hardtop sedans, and even station wagons.

Throughout the 1960s the two-door pillarless hardtop was by far the most popular body style in most lines where such a model was offered. Even on family vehicles like the Chevrolet Impala, the two-door hardtop regularly outsold four-door sedans.

The hardtop began to disappear along with convertibles in the mid-1970s, partly out of a concern that U.S. federal safety regulations would be difficult for pillarless models to pass. The ascendancy of monocoque construction also made the pillarless design less practical. Some models adopted modified roof styling, placing the B pillars behind tinted side window glass and painting or molding the outer side of each pillar in black to make them less visible, creating a hardtop look without actually omitting the pillar. Some mid to late 1970s models continued their previous two-door hardtop bodies, but with fixed rear windows or a variety of vinyl roof and opera window treatments. The U.S. industry's last true two-door and four-door hardtops were in the 1978 Chrysler Newport line.

Since then, no U.S. manufacturer has offfered a true hardtop in regular production, although some German manufacturers, including BMW and Mercedes have offered upscale pillarless hardtops. The body style may be due to return, however, as concept versions of the Dodge Challenger and Chevrolet Camaro shown in 2006 were both two-door hardtops.

See also

• Car body styles

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