brimby

Hey guys. Just bought my first Vette --- a teal '92 6-speed in excellent condition. No dings, no scuffs... well until I came along.

I'll save you the story of my launched lid because I'm sure it's the same as all the others (and no one was hurt), but I'd like to restore my new car to the way it was when I bought it a few short weeks ago. So I'm hoping someone has a shiny teal top for my sad C4 so I can move past this epic failure of mine. Thanks!

Edit: I'd still possibly be interested in a top of a different color if the frame and fiberglass are all perfect. I'm going to call around this week and see what it would cost me for a rebuild on my busted one vs. a repaint on a different one.

corvetteronw

Lots of members of this club here



Seriously - Do a search for Corvette salvage yards. I like Vette2Vette in Streator, IL. I'll just bet a repair job will cost more than buying and repainting a used one.
There have been owners here who have done a rattle can job that turned out good too.

brimby

That's a good idea. I was looking at ebay but the shipping cost isn't pretty with items of that size.

Oddly enough, even though I live in the SF Bay Area of California, I only come up with one Corvette salvage yard on Google Maps within 2 hours of me. And it has no website or reviews

Here it is:

eduardomi

Do tops just fly out?

I am new to this, please do tell your story.

Silver85

Might want to post in the parts section for more replies.

brimby

Yeah they do unfortunately. After it happened to me I felt like the biggest idiot in the world, but after doing a quick Google I found out that it is so common as to have a name: the "Flying Roof Club", so that made me feel a little better.

There isn't too much to my story, and I'm glad I can spread the word to someone who might otherwise become a victim some day, so here it is:

I was driving it with the top off and parked it for the night. I live in a very safe and secluded place so I figured I could set the top on to keep morning dew from getting in, but I thought I could be lazy and not screw the top in place because I was planning on driving it to work with the top off in the morning. Well, morning came and it wasn't quite as warm as I would have liked it for driving with the top off so, in my endlessly lazy mindset, I figured the top was heavy enough to withstand a very short 10min drive to work. I was wrong. The second I got over probably 40 or maybe 45 mph, the thing took off like a hawk into the sky. I watched it through my rearview mirror in horror and literally yelled, "NO!" And I'm not the kind of person to even make a peep while on a rollercoaster. Luckily the next person was far enough behind me to drive around it. If it would have hit anyone's car my life would have been 10x harder. But I pulled over as quickly as I could and ran out to grab it from the street even though another car was heading straight for it. I figured they would stop for me, but maybe not see the top if I wasn't there.

So there you go. I think most people forget to screw it down. I'm worse in that I did it intentionally out of laziness. But we all learn our lessons, and sometimes they are more valuable than they cost. Probably not this time though! The last thing I'll say about it is that miraculously, the top of the top never fully touched the road. It mostly rolled on its sides and then came to a stop on its bottom, so 3 of the corners got scraped along the edges and sustained a bit of fiberglass cracking, and the bottom got scraped in a very non-noticeable way. So overall the top still looks incredibly good for what happened to it. But that almost makes it more infuriating.

81c3

Dont beat yourself up too badly.... NO ONE is perfect and we all go through many " live & learn" experiences. Life is like a bowl of cherries... unfortunately, some are rotten!!