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Manufacturers in general and designers in particular love convertible derivatives of saloons. Not surprising as they almost invariably look marvellous and attract great interest. I like that X-Type. Reminiscent of the Corsica conversion on the X300 which did eventually make it as far as a prototype:
The problem always comes in attempting to turn a concept into a production reality. The extra strenghening to compensate for removal of the roof is costly to engineer and expensive to build. Several manufacturers learned the lesson that it was more cost effective to first design a convertible and add a roof. Jaguar adopted this approach with the 2006-14 XK and Bentley did it with the Continental GT.
Manufacturers in general and designers in particular love convertible derivatives of saloons. Not surprising as they almost invariably look marvellous and attract great interest. I like that X-Type. Reminiscent of the Corsica conversion on the X300 which did eventually make it as far as a prototype:
The problem always comes in attempting to turn a concept into a production reality. The extra strenghening to compensate for removal of the roof is costly to engineer and expensive to build. Several manufacturers learned the lesson that it was more cost effective to first design a convertible and add a roof. Jaguar adopted this approach with the 2006-14 XK and Bentley did it with the Continental GT.
Graham
i am familiar with the Corsica, Graham. Beautiful car. It was originally just a chassis, but I read that some years ago a remaining new AJ16 engine was professionally fitted into it, and it’s now a fully registered, running vehicle, owned by Jaguar Heritage.
