I am looking at purchasing a 73 ragtop from a family friend.

However, when I was speaking with a few people at the VW nationals, they said to do your homework as VW Australia stopped producing the ragtop during the mid-1960's and were only producing the steel sunroofs.

Can anybody please shed some light on this topic?

Thanks

John

More than likely it will be a Britax sun roof. These were aftermarket roofs that were available back then.
They were a sort of copy of a Golde but not as structural. The Golde had a structural lip built into the roof - the Britax had supports clamped on.

Have a look at the following link

http://www.sebeetles.com/ 

That is a list of "Official" Special Editions released.