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Old 09-25-2019, 08:05 PM   #632
Tcoat
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ZDan View Post
T-tops are not a great solution... Still sacrifice stiffness and add weight. Center cross beam gives back a tiny amount of bending stiffness in an awkward place, midway between the A-pillars to midway between the B-pillars, and does next to nothing for torsional stiffness.

Difficult and ill-advised to try to make a car intended as a fixed-roof coupe into an open-top roadster. Again, you're gonna add weight and sacrifice stiffness, there's just no way around it. The roof as a shear panel is just soooo structurally efficient.
There is also the issue of crash crumple zones and longitudinal impact resistance that comes into play. It isn't just performance stiffness that would have to be made up for without the full roof. The roof itself does not give strength but it does direct the forces of a crash to the places that can absorb it.

People think that the Targa was a Toyota concept but it was actually a custom made by Cartel Customs. It did not need to be reinforced to pass crash tests like a production car would.
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