The top I bought for my Bugeye a few years ago was from Little British Car
Company off their web site. Apparently it is drop shipped from England.
According to LBC Company it was made by the original maker when the car was
new. It came with all the fittings and I had to mark and make the holes in
the right places. Really not a bad way to spend an afternoon. You also
need both the front and rear bars, but the holes in the back are in the
right place. The only problem I have with the top is the sewn peak that
locates the forward fold out bow is behind where the bow extends out to. So
the top is loose unless I pull the bow back out of full extension and the
tightness of the top keeps it in place, unless I hit a big bump or pothole,
then everything goes loose again. Other than that, the top is very good
quality material and is priced somewhat cheaper than the usual suspects.
Can't say what the tops for the later cars are like in fitment, but at least
you can order different colors and even get one with a zippered rear
window. All this talk of bad fitting tops has me wondering where I should
buy the top for my BN2 resto project or just have one made at a shop.
Mike MacLean
60 Sprite
56 BN2
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:11 PM, Kitterer Bob <bkitterer@me.com> wrote:
> The only differences that I have ever seen was rather minor differences in
> where some of the lift-a-dots were mounted. Now some cars did not have
> lift-a-dots along the back of the compartment but used the rear top bar
> mount
> - - long or short tonneaus. As I recall when replacing a top or tonneau
> from
> MG Mitten I did have to install the lift-a-dots. I have never used NOS
> tops
> or tonneaus but would have expected the material to have shrunk to the
> point
> of being useless. That was the case with the top that was new when my car
> went up on blocks but it was way to small some ten years later even after a
> day out in the sun.
>
> The problem that I had with Robbins was that the tops (and tonneau) were
> just
> the wrong size despite their great quality and having patterns that went
> back
> for years. The first top was the right shape but two inches short of
> reaching
> the windshield even with the top bows collapsed to the max. Doug said that
> letting it lay out in the sun for a bit would stretch it enough to go on
> and
> if I could not do it his installer could. This may have been true,
> assuming
> that they did not break the windshield in the process, and it would have
> looked great in a car show. But we needed a top that two old f**ts could
> install on a cold rainy day to keep us dry. The next top they delivered
> was
> for a Mk III and top number three was some combination of a BE and a Mk
> something and hung over the windshield by about three inches. Most of
> annoying was that Doug measured my car, lift-a-dot locations, noted and
> marked
> up an old tonneau then delivered a cover with corners radiuses that totally
> missed the lift-a-dot locations making it worthless. This was a
> non-refundable tonneau because it was in white which they were no longer
> listing.
>
> Very sad for a very old company which other wise has a great product.
>
> Bob Kitterer
>
> 1960 Austin Healey Sprite (Mk IV in disguise) - in storage
> 1966 Austin Healey Sprite Mk III (Trevor) - still in boxes - in storage
> 2000 Miata Special Edition - in storage
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