Enjoy the summer with folding roof convertibles!
Ah, the folding roof convertible. Who doesn’t know him? About 22 years ago it was all the rage to have a Peugeot 206 with an opening roof. It was certainly not the first (we’ll get to that later), but it was a very successful one.
folding roof convertibles
Not only for Peugeot, but for a lot of other car brands. The car created a new niche in the convertible market. What’s called, the 206 changed the convertible landscape enormously. Car brands that normally had nothing to do with convertibles suddenly adopted the ‘CC’, which stood for ‘coupe convertible’.
It became the new benchmark in both the B and C segments. Opel, Ford, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, Nissan: all brands had to have such a folding roof at once. But how did that happen so suddenly? And wasn’t the convertible with a metal folding roof much older? We dive into history and share with great pleasure the most important highlights from the history of the convertible with a folding roof!
Hudson Super Six
1922
The oldest example we know of is the Hudson Super Six by Ben P. Ellerbeck. He is the first person to apply for a patent for a car with a metal folding roof. In addition to patent drawings, he had made several scale models with the mechanism. In 1922 it was finally time for the first car with a metal folding roof: the Hudson Hornet Super Six 1919.
That happened to be a car that Ellerbeck could work on, Hudson himself had nothing to do with it. The name of the system at the time was the ‘Flip Flop’ system. What was special was that the roof folds over the tailgate, not into it. So it didn’t take up any extra luggage space. It would not lead to series production.
Paulin and Peugeot
1931 – 1942
An important name in the world of the folding roof convertible is Georges Paulin. This Jewish Frenchman was a very gifted designer, with the necessary knowledge of aerodynamics. He was convinced that good aerodynamics made for faster and more economical automobiles. In 1927 he saw his neighbor playing with his fabric hood.
He started thinking and came up with the idea for a metal folding roof. After a period of four years, he filed a patent for a metal folding roof convertible construction. The big difference with Ellerbeck’s idea is that Paulin’s method worked electrically, Ellerbeck’s you had to operate yourself. Also, the roof folded INTO the luggage compartment, not on it.
The next step was for Paulin to make money from it. He took the design to Citroën, which sold him a ‘Mais non, monsieur’. Fortunately, body builder Pourtout was interested. Paulin visited car manufacturers, but it was a coachbuilder (because that was Pourtout) who saw potential in it.
Initially for a special project for a customer with a Hotchkiss. That idea ultimately came to nothing, but Pourtout and Pauling were able to work well together. Their first real collaboration was the Peugeot 301 owned by none other than Paulin’s father. Oh well, my mother always liked the drawings of yours truly.
Paulin left the car in a local Peugeot showroom and then the ball started rolling. Slowly but surely, several Peugeot executives came by to view the 301 ‘Eclipse’. This led to a deal where Peugeot could make a convertible version with the folding roof on the Peugeot 401. In return, Paulin received a percentage per car sold. Pourtout also converted several examples into convertibles, which were designed and developed by Paulin.
Lancia Belna Eclipse
1938
Days go by when you don’t think about the Lancia Belna, probably. In short, the Lancia Belna is a Lancia Augusta, but for France. The version with a metal hardtop is not an invention of Lancia itself, but of Georges Paulin. He helped with the Peugeot above, but also with some open variants of the Lancia Belna.
Paulin could not enjoy his creations for long. In 1940 he joined the resistance and was used by the British as a spy. Paulin was betrayed and executed by the Nazis in 1942.
Chrysler Thunderbolt
1941
A concept car from Chrysler. While war broke out in Europe, things were going well in the United States (they would only later become involved in WWII). This ensured that Americans still dared to show exuberant fantasy models at car fairs in the early 1940s.
The Chrysler Thunderbolt comes two years AFTER the very first concept car ever and was the second concept car ever made. The Thunderbolt was ‘the car of the future’. In terms of styling, that was correct, because many design features would also be visible on production models in the following years. Unfortunately, we did not see the metal folding roof on a Chrysler.
Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner
1957 – 1959
Although there were already several coupe convertibles, the Ford Skyliner is perhaps the first really successful one. The basis is, as the name suggests, the Fairlane. It didn’t get much better than that at The Blue Oval. The ‘Hide-away hardtop’ could be folded away almost completely. It’s funny that only the front part folded away.
You would think that if you do make a folding construction, put the fold in the middle, then you will get the most benefit from it. While the Peugeot Eclipse models were quite rare, this was not the case with the Fairlane 500 Skyliner. More than 50,000 were built. Fun fact: after the Skyliner went out of production, Lincoln used the same roof construction, but made of fabric..
Toyota Soarer Aerocabin (E-MZ20)
1989
It may be that the name Toyota Soarer means nothing to you. In fact, this is the predecessor of the current Lexus LC, which in turn is the successor to the Lexus SC, a car that was sold in Japan as… Toyota Soarer! The Soarer is the large, luxurious and fast GT from Toyota. The Aerocabin is a special case, as Japanese premium cars often were in this period.
The Soarer Aerocabin retains its C-pillar and roof pillars, but it has a convertible roof like a Baur BMW. This time not made of fabric, but of metal! The roof mechanism could then fold away into the location where the rear seat used to be
Mitsubishi 3000GT Spyder
1995-1996
Mitsubishi is not the most well-known manufacturer in the field of convertibles. In fact, Japanese manufacturers rarely make a convertible and when they do, it is absolutely not a success. Sensible cars and an automotive open back apparently don’t go together. The 3000GT was Mitsubishi’s ultimate GT in the 1990s with all the technology they knew on board: four-wheel steering, active aerodynamics, two turbos: everything was possible.
In collaboration with ASC, a ‘Spyder’ was developed with a metal folding roof. There was an ‘SL’ (non Turbo V6 with automatic) and a VR4 (twin turbo V6 with manual gearbox).
Mercedes-Benz SLK (R170)
1996
The big breakthrough for the metal folding roof came in 1996 with the Mercedes-Benz SLK. In 1994 we could see the SLK Concept that looked very nice:
Unfortunately it didn’t come. We had to wait six months to see the second concept, the SLK 2 Concept, in the fall of 1994:
In 1996 people were a bit disappointed with the appearance of the considerably more respectable SLK. Despite the fact that the SLK is a sports car (Sport, Leicht, Kurz), the car is absolutely not sporty. The car has quite heavy bones. The SLK stands on a C-Class platform with a shortened wheelbase. But that didn’t matter, they were great convertibles.
The beautiful appearance in combination with the acceptable price and therefore that roof were a winning combination. For a long time it was the most stable car in Germany.
Nissan Silva Varietta (GF-S15)
2000-2002
The Nissan Silvia is the Japanese version of the car we know as the Nissan 200SX. For us it stopped with the S14 generation. In 1999, the Japanese market received an S15 generation. The conversion was done by Autech, which often does specific projects for Nissan.
A Skyline GT-R with four doors? Vans for the disabled? Adjustments to Coor training cars? They do it at Autech. The basis is the Silvia Spec S, so with the naturally aspirated 2.0 four-cylinder with ‘only’ 160 hp. Only 1143 copies were made.
Peugeot 206 CC
2001 – 2006
And so we arrive at the Peugeot 206 CC. Peugeot did a few things very well. First of all, they had the courage to make something that the market didn’t want. The market didn’t know it wanted this until they saw it. The car was very affordable with a starting price of around 20,000 euros for a quick 1.6 sixteen-valve.
Of course you could dress it up very luxuriously with leather upholstery, beautiful wheels, a big two-liter sixteen-valve engine and there was even a Roland Garros version. The car caused a complete craze that we will discuss in a follow-up article!
Bonus: Chrysler Sebring
2008
The idea of ​​the CC also caught on in the United States. The most special American car is this extremely average Chrysler Sebring. Because what is so special about it? It did not have a metal folding roof as standard! That was fabric, you had to pay extra for metal. Not a bad idea in itself.
The idea was briefly adopted by the Chrysler 200 (basically a very successfully facelifted Sebring) and there you could also choose between a fabric roof and a metal folding roof:
Super bonus: Chevrolet SSR
2003 – 2006
You can’t write an article about folding roof convertibles and not mention the Chevrolet SSR. It’s a crazy device with zero logic behind it. It didn’t drive very sporty and as a pick-up it was also hopeless. Of course there was more than enough space for the folding roof to fold away. By the way, it is not ‘just’ a pickup convertible that was supposed to be ‘fun’.
The engine is the 5.7 V8 from the Corvette, later even the 6.0 with 400 hp! For that you had to choose the manual gearbox. There is nothing logical about the Chevrolet SSR and yet it fits like a charm.
That’s it for my talk about convertibles with a metal folding roof!
