Gday guys we have just bought a 1971 volkswagen tourer and I am woundering is it possible to remove the roll bars within the vehicle by rienforcing b pillar and other area's. Has anybody done this as we would like the vehicle with no roll bars in it. In other words how is the karmen convertable done without the roll bar. If you guys know somebody who can help us out it would be greatly appreciated. If you know how to do this even better. We are basically going to restore the car so removing stuff and welding in reinforcement is not a issue. Can you please Help the car is currently registered at this time. PLEASE HELP THANKS Ben Dickens u2u Harryman

You should consult an engineer as it will need approval I'm guessing. The Karmann Kabriolet had 2 large reinforcement channels running along the bottom of the pan which gave it back some stiffness, as well as little webs at the base of the pillars.

The bar that goes under and in front of the back seat is a solid welded in piece as well - not a flimsy piece of tin as in the sedans

The windscreen shape is also different with strengthening in the A pillars. Under the bonnet there are little reinforcing tabs as well as the reinforcing rails under the heater channels, support bar under the rear seat and the fillets from the top of the heater channel to the base of the A pillar and B pillar. On top of that, there are the different rear quarter panels to allow the windows to wind up and down (this also make the back seat smaller). There is then reinforcing at the top of the body from the rear of the back wind up windows towards the back of the car.

You will definitely need engineering approval for it. Probably cheaper to buy a real one and fix it up. Selling a "Non Original" would also not be easy.

Yogie

There was that kit that did Karman type cabrio conversions??

Wonder how they did it???

I recall that there was a company in Victoria that used a Karmann Cab as a blueprint to copy from. The conversions would have cost a lot though as they did make a pretty good copy, don't know about the wind up rear windows though, this would have been about 15 years ago now.

I "thought" it was an English company

Yes -somehow it had wind up rear windows.

Yes- i heard it was expensive

I think it was in Bendigo but they have closed now. They also did repro hebmullers.

Yogie

South Aus... I think! Ressurection Panels...