Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Foldaway Sunroofs
Fabric foldaway sunroofs seem to be primarily a European invention with this option showing up on particular Fiats, Citroens, and Volkswagens. 
However, during the late 60′s and early 70′s, they were offered on various mid sized GM cars like the Buick Skylark or the Chevrolet Nova.
So let’s see how many other manufacturers offer this peculiar option. Please read through all the postings so there is no duplicates, and remember to re-size the images before posting them.
DIFFICULTY: There are a few obvious choices, mostly from Europe, but there were quite a few aftermarket options that were available. Extra credit in naming those aftermarket makers…
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<img src="http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200606/1957-fiat-500_460x0w.jpg">
Fiat 500
Vespa 400
<img src="http://www.vintagemicrocar.com/events/Goulds_2004/images/Goulds_2004/Vespa%20400%20blue%20LR.JPG"width=500>
1958 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud
http://www.parkeavenuelimousine.com/limousines.ht…
AMC offered a few sunroofs in 1972.
<img src="http://www.studebakerskytop.com/otherAMCad.jpg" width=500>
An open-top Gremlin? Getouttatown! How cool would that be to find?
Actually I want to find one of those Sportabouts at the pick-and-pull, and then stitch the roof panel onto a VAM Lerma.
Or an Eagle wagon – though that'd nearly be too easy.
I have one. A 72 Gremlin with factory sunroof.
Well let me swat the low-hanging fruit like a piñata, even though VW has been mentioned. I mean, you expect it of me, right?
<img src="http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/volkwsagen-bus-7.jpg">
I so much wanted one of those in high school. I even found one for $200. My dad wouldn't let me buy it because his mechanic hated VWs, and possibly Germans.
My dad had a Bay Window when I was a kid. I absolutely adored it. We went camping in it several times, to a lake about 70 km away from home. Since that was the only vehicle I had ever used to get to that lake, I didn't realize that it was normally about a 45 minute drive away… but in that little Bay Window, it was closer to 3 or 4 hours, driving through the steep mountain passes. I think I was 15 before I realized how close it really was.
I was about 8 when he sold it. I think I cried, which baffled my parents completely. I've wanted one of my own ever since.
The reference to a "Bay Window" sent me scrambling to Google and then Wikipedia… I had never heard that nickname for the Type 2 VW before. Yet again I've learned something new…!
Fiat Stilo
<img src="http://cdn.24.com/files/Cms/General/d/1/eba777799ee8408396beacb904f53852.jpg" width="400">
How about Webasto for one of the aftermarket suppliers?
1966 Subaru Maia
<img src="http://drischnie.homeip.net/www.subaru-impreza.de/SubaruGeschichte/360/360klein.jpg" width="500" />
True, but I believe your photo just shows a vinyl roof of the regular sedan. The sunroof looks like this:
<img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/388792670_127217707f.jpg" width="400">
Shhh…I couldn't find a good photo and my own pic of one is at home.
WRX with a Webasto 400 folding fabric panoramic roof.
<img src="http://www.webastoshowroom.com/images/Subaru_imprezawrx_03_400.jpg" width="400">
Sunway (Britax) Sliding Ragtop on a Duster 340
<img src="http://www.slidingragtops.com/uploaded/images/small%20Mopar.bmp" width="400">
There was also a factory fabric option in '72 on the Duster's twin, the Dodge Demon.
<img src="http://www.studebakerskytop.com/other'72DodgeDemonwithsunroof.jpg">
Whaaaaa…?
SAAB 96
<img src="http://peacetek.net/saab-96/martin_bergstrand/mb-196x-saab-96-ragtop-r.jpg" width="400">
Also available on the earlier 93, but I'm not wading through way too many 9-3 pics to look for a shot of one.
Taking it to the next level, the Citroen Pluriel, not just the roof but the whole rear end folds away, leaving the most cowl-shake afflicted car I've ever had the misfortune to drive.
<img src="http://www.citroencarclub.org.uk/PostNuke/modules/ContentExpress/img_repository/citroen_pluriel.jpg" width="400">
Wow, and they were so proud of the C3 Pluriel when it was launched. Yikes.
I'm surprised the Mini Cooper hasn't been mentioned.
<img src="http://www.thecartorialist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/mini_cooper_silverbullet.jpg">
It has.
I'm not seeing it. Strange.
I put it up twice and it disappeared twice, so I gave up. Happened with the MG I also put up. Intense Debate doesn't like me at times I guess.
If I could edit my comment, I would give you full cred.
I wonder if linking to pics on certain sites conflicts with Intense Debate. It only ever seems to happen on comments that include pictures.
Nope, it just happened to me on a text-only comment.
Obviously Intense Debate can't handle the intensity when the Hoons get to howlin' over a good Hoonatica.
Pontiac Ventura II
<img src="http://www.studebakerskytop.com/other%2771PontiacVenturaIISprintwithsunroof.jpg" width="500" />
LeCar fabric top! get some!
<img src="http://www.fuckfrance.com/images/i759/4747.315lecar.jpg">
Oh if only that said "… Le car doesn't"!
In keeping with today's Studebaker emphasis, I offer you the Lark Skytop.
<img src="http://www.studebakerskytop.com/picfactoryNov%2761StudebakerNews.jpg" height="615">
Yowza! She's hot!
It's the horizontal stripes. Makes 'em stand out more.
One more: Borgward Isabella.
<img src="http://www.studebakerskytop.com/otherBorgwardIsabella1957withsunroof.jpg">
Those were often called "roll-top" convertibles. Ford offered one in the early 1930s, but they weren't all that popular in the US. A fair number of European cars had them from the 1930s through the 1950s. The Vespa pictured earlier counts as one, and here's a Peugeot 203.
<img src="http://www.cabrionews.de/katalog/peugeot/203.jpg" width=400>
Frankly, that's how the PT Cruiser convertible should have been done.
Roll-Top Convertible could be a separate entry in Encyclopedia Hoonatica.
Technically a moonroof, and it causes me pain that I know this: the late and unlamented Pontiac G6.
<img src="http://www.familycar.com/roadtests/pontiacg6/Images/Sunroof.jpg" width="500"/>
I've never quite figured out the difference between a sunroof and a moonroof. Have you?
Obviously, one lets in the sun, and one lets out the moon. Duh.
You can only use a moonroof at night?
Also, I couldn't remember what car that was on. The G6! It's stretching it, but it follows the same mechanical concept as the fabric roofs.
It's a fuzzy distinction with lots of overlap, but a sunroof is solid metal or fabric, while a moonroof is glass that lets in light even when closed.
Well then what the hell is a "glass sunroof?"
http://rules.config.jaguar.com/rc/jag/gb/cv_jscrl…
i'm guessing that a true 'electric glass sunroof' would be the kind available on the maybach/some other limos that use an electric charge to change from opaque to clear… as for what's shown on that link… i think it's just a moonroof.. and i blame it on "engrish"
As I said, there's no clear distinction. Wiki says:
"Sunroofs, by historical definition are opaque and slide open to allow sunshine and fresh air into the passenger compartment. Today, most factory sliding sunroof options feature a glass panel and are sometimes marketed as moonroofs, a term introduced in 1973 by John Atkinson, a marketing manager at Ford for the Lincoln Continental Mark IV."
As near as I can figure it, a sunroof can be clear but a moonroof can't be opaque.
Read the GM forums at flatratetech.com to see what a nightmare those things were, with all the tweaks they were trying, to make them not rattle. Bad.
They were also popular on German microcars, such as the Lloyd Alexander and Goggomobil.
<img src="http://microcarmuseum.com/tour/images/goggot250-green10.jpg" width="500">
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Lloyd_Alexander_TS.jpg" width="500">
Does the Land Rover 101 count?
<img src="http://www.allwheeltrim.co.uk/Images/101-sand.jpg" />
I vote yes, and am therefore including the Iltis.
<img src="http://www.sunsetclassics.com/1985-vw-iltis/images/1985-vw-iltis.jpg" width="400">
What? "Convertible"? Shut up, we're having fun here.
That top looks like a rolled-back sunroof to me!
The DAF Daffodil.
<img width="500" src="http://www.ritzsite.demon.nl/DAF/Cars/DAF32_f3q.jpg">
Hmmm.. Mr Biggles already grabbed MG darn it. I've got a Webasto for the BGT in the garage that I picked up from England for WAAAAY too much money in my very first EvilBay auction. Something about a frantic bidding war and not paying attention to how much a pound really was… Wife suspended me from Payal for a year.
Thus, I submit my tired old standby the @$#% smart-car. Yeah, it's a "Convertible," but the roof slides back on rails and stops halfway like a folding sunroof if you want it to. It just also happens to go all the way down if you push the right buttons.
Ironically, the plastic see-through moon-roof version is made by Webasto. It mocks me.
<img src="http://2.imimg.com/data2/KH/KV/HELLOTD-1143430/smart-2-250×250.jpg" />
The 1996-present Targa is one of the interminable varieties of 911. This is a 2002, for those of you who instead committed Darwin's finches or the back catalog of Parliament Funkadelic to that portion of the brain.
<img src="http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt237/jskitter/hooniverse/Porsche-Targa-023-1.jpg" width="500">
Umm…..also earlier 993 was available as this type of targa:
<img src="http://www.idee.demon.nl/993/targa3.jpg">
2CV
<img src="http://www.enjoyfrance.com/images/stories/world/motoring/citroen-2cv.jpg">
Citroen Dyane
<img src="http://i62.servimg.com/u/f62/12/72/02/40/arva_110.jpg">
I didn't spend enough time searching for it… so i didn't find a pic… but Stacey David installed one on his "high sierra" project back when he was still doing the show 'Trucks'
Either IntenseNibbles OmNommed this, or this is such low-hanging fruit that only a short guy like me can get it.
<img src="http://www.studebakerskytop.com/otherHerbieTheLoveBugpic1.jpg">
Image source: A site that makes cheating too easy although I suspect some of you have found it.
Ford Festiva funtop.
You already mentioned it in the article, but here's a tired '66 Skylark I saw in 2008:
<img src="http://www.salguod.net/gallery/arthritis_foundation_2008/images/1966_buick_skylark_5.jpg">
<img src="http://www.salguod.net/gallery/arthritis_foundation_2008/images/1966_buick_skylark_3.jpg">
Option on the Mk 1 Scirocco. A good friend in high school (and later my best man) had one. Decades later we still tell a story involving topless girls in a Camaro driving next to us on the freeway and an unbashful third friend of ours, the open sunroof and a pair of drawstring shorts.
God damn, those are pretty looking cars. Wanna send me one?
Speaking of Webasto, does this count?
<img src="http://www.nextautos.com/files/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/webasto_concept_2003_01.jpg">
<img src="http://www.sunroofs.org/tech/welcome2.jpg">
<img src="http://www.awecar.com/Make/Webasto/Welcome_2/Webasto_Welcome_2.jpg">
Webasto Welcome 2 concept, 2003
1958 Mercedes Benz Ponton:
<img src="http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/gallery/12/2008/04/medium_2418424567_cf7949cfe8_o.jpg">
Nissan Figaro
[img