Retractable hardtop

Peugeot 402 Eclipse Decapotable (1938)

1934 Lancia Belna Eclipse

1934 Peugeot 601 C Eclipse

1958 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner while roof is in the demonstration position.

1919 Ben P. Ellerbeck conceived a retractable hardtop – a manually operated system on a Hudson coupe that allowed unimpeded use of the rumble seat even with the top down[3] – but never saw production.[4]

1934 Lancia introduced the first production, power-operated retractable hardtop in 1934, the Belna Eclipse,[5][6][7] designed and patented by Georges Paulin.[1] The Belna was a French-built Lancia Augusta. The French coachbuilder, Marcel Pourtout, custom-built examples of Paulin's designs on other makes like Panhard and Peugeot 401, 402 or 601.[1]

1941 Chrysler introduced a retractable hardtop concept car, the Chrysler Thunderbolt.[3]

1953 Ford Motor Company spent an estimated US$2 million (US$19,111,940 in 2019 dollars[8]) to engineer a Continental Mark II with a servo-operated retractable roof. The project was headed by Ben Smith, a 30-year-old draftsman.[9] The concept was rejected for cost and marketing reasons.[3] Engineering work was recycled to the Ford Division which used the retractable mechanism in their 1957-1959 flagship Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner after an estimated US$18 million (US$163,855,450 in 2019 dollars[8]) more was spent.[10]

1955 Brothers Ed and Jim Gaylord showed their first prototype at the 1955 Paris motor show,[11] but the car failed to reach production.

1957 Ford introduced the Fairlane 500 Skyliner in the United States. A total of 48,394 were built from 1957 to 1959.[3] The retractable top was noted for its complexity and usually decent reliability[12][13] in the pre-transistor era. Its mechanism contained 10 power relays, 10 limit switches, four lock motors, three drive motors, eight circuit breakers, as well as 610 feet (190 m) of electrical wire,[3] and could raise or lower the top in about 40 seconds. The Skyliner was a halo car with little luggage space (i.e., practicality), and cost twice that of a baseline Ford sedan.

1989 Toyota introduced a modern retractable hardtop, the MZ20 Soarer Aerocabin. The car featured an electric folding hardtop and was marketed as a 2-seater with a cargo area behind the front seats. Production was 500 units.

1995 The Mitsubishi GTO Spyder by ASC was marketed in the U.S.[4] The design was further popularized by such cars as the 1996 Mercedes-Benz SLK.[1] and 2001 Peugeot 206 CC.

2006 Peugeot presented a concept four-door retractable hardtop convertible, the Peugeot 407 Macarena.[14] Produced by French coachbuilding specialist Heuliez, the Macarena's top can be folded in about 30 seconds.[14] It has a reinforcing beam behind the front seats which incorporates LCD screens into the crossmember for the rear passengers.[14]

Closing of the retractable hardtop of a BMW 3-series (E93)

Retractable hardtops are commonly made from between two and five sections of metal or plastic and often rely on complex dual-hinged trunk/boot lids that enable the trunk lid to both receive the retracting top from the front and also receive parcels or luggage from the rear. The trunk also often includes a divider mechanism to prevent loading of luggage that would conflict with the operation of the hardtop.

The retractable hardtop's advantages include:

• More weatherly when roof is raised
• More secure than fabric tops[2][18]
• Increased structural rigidity
• May enable consolidation/simplification of a manufacturer's car lineup; for instance the BMW Z4 (E89) was offered only as a coupé-convertible (hardtop), compared to the preceding E85 generation that had separate coupé and cabriolet (soft-top) variants.

The retractable hardtop's disadvantages include:

• Higher initial cost
• Increased mechanical complexity
• Potentially diminished passenger and trunk space compared to a soft-top convertible.[19][20]
• Higher weight and center of gravity than soft-top convertibles, potentially reducing handling.[21][19][20]
• Potential need for more than minimum clearance while operating the hardtop. For example, the Volvo C70 requires 6.5 feet (2 m) of vertical clearance during operation,[22] the Cadillac XLR requires 6 ft 10 ¹⁄₂ in (2 m) of vertical clearance and the Mercedes SLK's trunk lid extends rearward while lowering or lifting the top.

• 
  Mazda Miata Power Retractable Hard Top (PRHT) c. 2007, with 77 lb (35 kg) polycarbonate hardtop and identical cargo capacity to the soft top version[15]
• 
  Cadillac XLR c. 2007, with fully retracted aluminum (i.e., lightweight) hardtop concealed by self-storing tonneau cover, the hardtop manufactured by a supplier joint venture of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche[23]
• 
  Daihatsu Copen c. 2001 with retracted hardtop, qualifying for the ultra-compact Japanese Kei class
• 
  Ford Focus CC c. 2006 with its roof retracted, its final assembly performed by Pininfarina
• 
  Chevrolet SSR c. 2004, a retractable hardtop convertible pickup truck, its top engineered by ASC
• 
  Volkswagen Eos c. 2007, the five-segment top features an independently sliding sunroof, made by OASys
• 
  Opel Astra Twintop with a three-part folding metal roof which sits in the upper half of the boot space, leaving considerable luggage space below it. Sold from 2005-2012.