Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Hardtop for Cobra

After trying to buy a hood from GD for some 18 months, they have now announced a hardtop. The Le Mans hardtop, is close to the original Cobra style.

At the time of posting this blog the soft top was still not available. I had a number of other options, to get a hood and I was getting very close to doing this. But I really liked the shape of the Le Mans hardtop, even if you do have to open the rear window in order to open the boot.

427hardtops produce one that looked particularly good. This is a stunning creation, has a window behind the door and stainless steel around the side screens. It may not look like a traditional Cobra hardtop, but still looks very attractive. The design was originally for a Dax Cobra, so it is not an exact fit on the GD. However, 427hardtops have done one for a GD and have another scheduled for February this year. The hardtop comes virtually finished, although it has to be sprayed after that. April looks to be the earliest they could do one for me.

The GD hardtop by comparison is slightly less expensive and looks more like the original. It does however come in kit form, although it can be factory fitted at an extra cost. It is also self coloured, so it should match the gelcoat of the car thereby avoiding the need to have it sprayed.

The GD option is slightly shorter than the 427hardtops version. The benefit here is that my fuel filler is at the corner of the boot, rather than an Aston style filler on the rear wing, so it should be easier to access inside the hardtop to fill up. If necessary the fuel filler will be mounted on the C pillar, but this will make the hardtop virtually permanent. I have been quoted 2 months (although 4 months is what it works out at in reality!).

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