I bought a vr4 with a targa top conversion

I really only bought it because it was a good deal and well worth it in parts. I figured the targa conversion would be pretty crappy and the car wouldn't be worth saving. But it actually was done a lot better than I anticipated. They must have had a wrecked spyder doner car. The targa roof if the front spyder section. They welded on the spyder roof section above the front window too. So the targa latches just like a spyder would. for the rear they did something custom and utilize 2 pins to lock it in place. So the rear of the targa slides in, then the front sets down. A switch activates the spyder motor and it latches the front down.

I figured it was cool to see so here are a bunch of pictures. I'm not sure what I'll be doing with it yet. I'm still building my shop so this will probably sit for a while. It popped up Craigslist though the other day so I had to jump on it. Pictures below. I also did a video walk around here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WXXLZMeyGg




http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...pst2vh0flb.jpg

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4oyd78wh.jpg

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...pslohumfts.jpg

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...psdmkrnfhd.jpg

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...psblghbogz.jpg

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...psllioxwqx.jpg

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...psnhj201s6.jpg

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...psgj4vgja3.jpg

Neat!

This is epic and done right.

Some more pics. They tried to use the headliner section from the spyder too which I think looks ghetto. Other than that it's not a bad conversion. I think if someone was able to redo the headliner it would look pretty clean.


http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...psiacexabk.jpg

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...psmdqa0zld.jpg

Has the widebody too

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...ps48rhi6za.jpg


http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6kxdnr2v.jpg

Was once white

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...pspwy8is0z.jpg

Not sure if I can fix this or not, but I'm going to try.

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/...psdd90xzlh.jpg

I remember that car.

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Originally Posted by anyonebutme

I remember that car.

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Did you know the owner or something? I'm going to try searching the vin# later to see if I can find some old threads or sale ads for it online.

Wow. Great find. Would love to have something like that!

I've always wanted a targa. I'd be tempted to buy this from you.

I checked it over even more at lunch today. It's not something I am going to restore. Seems a little bit rusty/too far gone for me to put money into it. I'm going to talk to hans to see if it's anything he is interested in. (He already expressed interest in the shell lol) I have a feeling he will pass too though. I could definitely cut the roof sections off if someone wanted to try and convert a clean shell of their own.

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Originally Posted by fastfalcon94

I checked it over even more at lunch today. It's not something I am going to restore. Seems a little bit rusty/too far gone for me to put money into it. I'm going to talk to hans to see if it's anything he is interested in. (He already expressed interest in the shell lol) I have a feeling he will pass too though. I could definitely cut the roof sections off if someone wanted to try and convert a clean shell of their own.

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I might be interested if he isn't

Rust sucks!

Looks like it was, at some point, a beautiful car. The parts mix alone woudl make for a great restoration.

The targa is awesome. Never seen or heard of someone doing it that way.

-John

I think someone would be better using parts from it to targa another car. I looked at it closer. Looks like this was a white vr4 that had the large glass sunroof. They pulled the sunroof and cut it off in the back where the metal roof already steps down to accommodate the glass. They cut it right before the metal steps up leaving a small lip to put a rubber seal on top. Then the front is just spyder stuff. Then for the rear they drilled 2 holes and fastened some pins to the targa portion. Pretty clever. However they sucked at doing the headliner stuff. They glued some carpet felt stuff over the back and tried to re-utilize the spyder headliner stuff for the targa.

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Originally Posted by fastfalcon94

Did you know the owner or something? I'm going to try searching the vin# later to see if I can find some old threads or sale ads for it online.

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He made a thread on 3si during the conversion, but light on details and pics. He was trying to think of a way to finish it off, then it kinda disappeared. The widebody and the front lip were added sometime after the thread died. 3Si was flaky back then so I don't even know if the thread still exists. Somewhere I saved all the pics from the thread, but you're not going to see anything different than what you already see here.

There was 2 or 3 guys who were doing the conversion using spyder roofs, I don't remember any of their screen names, only one I've seen actually get this far completed.

The red targa used Spyder roof didn't it? Is this the one that used the wrecked black Spyder for donor parts?

Ummm... I did a targa top on what is now my Stealth trailer. I did it all from scratch though. No spyder parts. Fabbed up the entire thing from metal and fiberglass. ditched the project when I got stuck on the seals. I couldn't find anything that worked and had no way to make my own. Pics in the thread are long gone and dead...LOL

http://www.3si.org/forum/f1/project-...update-385438/

I believe his name was Dustin


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There ya go. DustinP was his user name IIRC.

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Originally Posted by stealthee

There ya go. DustinP was his user name IIRC.

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Wow, just found the thread. Excited to read through it.

http://www.3si.org/forum/f4/targa-kit-here-146470/

Edit: So yeah read through all his posts. DustinP sounds like the first person to do this. He sourced 2 spyder tops. One he did the conversion on his red 91 vr4. The other kit he sold for $3-4k to someone (unsure who). I'm guessing the car I bought has the kit he sold on it. So the front is all spyder stuff. The rear is a simple bent metal lip that gets welded in and uses a supra seal. Really interesting project. I haven't touched the car since buying it. Finishing up my garage. But this winter I'll figure out a plan for it.