To Surry Top or Not To Surry Top?

[ron73]

I bought my 4A in '82 and added a surrey in 2000. I sold the surrey in 2013 (to a happy club member in Yorkshire) and never looked back (no pun intended).

 

I now have a lovely Mohair top with a zip out rear window. My car looks great, the top quickly goes down for nice weather (and up, accordingly) and I thoroughly enjoy the car.

 

I think it's a personal thing. Yes, I appreciated less wind noise, etc, but always felt my vision was restricted and gee, the cabin felt cramped (in spite of the fact that it did indeed give me more rear space - it's just how I felt with the ever-present rear window).

 

So I went back to the true convertible. Happy ever after....

[badhuis]

One of the nice things of a TR4 is that is a truly open car, compared to modern convertibles. With their very long front windscreen reaching almost to the forehead and a screen just behind the seats. Usually they always drive with all the windows up. The opening left to the sky is about the same as having a big sunroof. Silly, what do you mean by wind in the hair motoring?

So as you have guessed no Surrey top for me.

[Tom Fremont]

When I got my first TR in '73 we had a 55 mph speed limit nationally. This continued for many years until finally retired. At that speed the wind effects are less than 1/2 of what they are at 70 mph, and today 80 is de rigeur where I live . I would say 80 mph with a Surrey kit gives as much wind in the hair as 55 mph without one.

 

No matter what kind of man you are ( and we are the blokiest to be found anywhere, aren't we ? ) it gets tiresome pretty quickly at 80 mph in a standard TR with the top off. I would feel quite constrained without the wraparound cockpit today, and note that many convertibles I see over here have their roofs up and A/C on in nice weather , a testament to modern highway speeds' effect on drop top motoring.

 

Cheers,

Tom

[Drewmotty]

I was interested to find that when driving roofless in quite heavy rain we remain dry but when the sun visors are lowered the inside of the backlight gets speckled with raindrops and the cockpit becomes more draughty.

One of the Devon Group members has made a polycarbonate spoiler which effectively increases the height of the windscreen by about 3 and reports that the cockpit is noticibly less draughty.

[RogerH]

I was interested to find that when driving roofless in quite heavy rain we remain dry but when the sun visors are lowered the inside of the backlight gets speckled with raindrops and the cockpit becomes more draughty.

One of the Devon Group members has made a polycarbonate spoiler which effectively increases the height of the windscreen by about 3 and reports that the cockpit is noticibly less draughty.

Over the years I have experimented with the position of the sun visors to effect a more comfy drive.

In the end I thought 'sod it' - I'm wasting energy fiddling about when I could be listening to the exhaust, wiggling the steering wheel and crunching the gears.

 

Roger

[The_Doc]

Thanks all for your thoughts and advice. I'm now the proud owner of a surrey top - Iif only I could just get the car finished....

 

Adam

[Prambert]

I bought a ragtop and after much searching found a steel surrey in excellent condition, had it resprayed to give us 'extra room' in the back so our old spaniel could come out to play too! It's been great, much quieter, but now thinking about reverting back to ragtop. I have only used the 'hardtop' twice!

[RogerH]

You should never need to use the 'hard top'. May be for a serious cold winter.

 

The fabric cover works very well in full sun and rain.

 

Roger

[Tom Fremont]

Love the metal lids myself . Aesthetically fabulous, they tighten the body and lower the decibels too.

 

It's the rag top which languishes in the boot of mine. Seldom caught in the rain it's either open top or metal lid 98% of the time for me.

 

You can get creative with them too:

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Tom