Originally Posted by Legion5

You've been told that by some one who's probably never even sat in a mustang S197 nor even looked at the design of one.

That's how much it costs to do any car, ie a Toyota Corrola into a convertible. To properly reinforce a Mustang coupe costs $500 including parts shipping and installation from a typical welding shop... That's the price.

I'll let you guys all in on a little secret. There's already a T-top for the Mustang and a really nice folding hard top but the reason why nobody is selling it is because the average mustang owner is a cheapskate who wants to get $4000 worth of machinery for $1521.13. The only way to do that is with Chinese manufacturing and massive quantities, and using a team of trained engineers to economize the design over hundreds of hours. Your car may be manufactured in China but you're not going to pay equal prices for it's aftermarket parts. That's why most people's cars on here look so plain compared to modders of other makes, because they don't want to spend $15,000 on an Elanor conversion, and do what it takes.

Anyway the hard top and t-top is already sold in a small circle of people who aren't going to offer it to the general public because the understanding is that nobody is going to buy the kit. There are about 3 hard tops and 2 t-top from the same guys, and they're installed and working. Part of the issue is also that the reliability isn't up to par with the expectations of most consumers in the market, but it's not terrible. However when you start doing things like this there's going to to be so complicated that that's just the reality.

How do I know all this? The guy privately making these parts stopped selling them over a year ago and I convinced him to make another run. About a month ago I put down $7000 on a complete kit. The kit is largely manufactured by a well known company that normally does stuff for big 3 production cars, and also because of the economic situation that developed over this year lots of the suppliers have gone out of business and I'm helping to find new ones now.

Things turn out a LOT different from mustangforums speculation don't they?