Wrong to De-Cali a ti?
 

It looks like my ti might be coming to the end of its life as a daily driver. The good thing about that is it may turn into the turbo project Ive always wanted. Along with the auto tranny the only other thing I dont really like is the cali roof. I do enjoy having the top open on nice days but looking at the big black peice of canvas is not exactly what I would call pretty. I also dont think it looks appropriate for a car thats main focus will be performance. So knowing that the ti was rare and the tis with cali roofs were even more scarce, is it wrong to take out the cali roof and fabricate a fixed roof? I dont want to anger the BMW gods because with all the previous owner abuse Im discovering it seems that they already dont like me...

If your that worried about performance sell the cali top and buy a non sunroot car. You will never make up the lost rigidity of the non sunroof chassis vs the cali top chassis. I would suspect you might even find someone who will trade even who WANTS the cali top badly, in my part of the country they carry about a 2K dollar premium over the other tops.

Just my .02 bucks worth.

Dave

+1
By the way, you might even spend close to another ti if you were to swap out the transmission and the roof...

-Randy

+1

California tops are rare enough as is. You should be able to sell it and turn around and buy a nice manual with a sunroof.

Not with this cali I wont. If anyone buys this car it will end up being a non-enthusiast who just wants a BMW for under $1000 (and very possibly under $500). Because taking out the cali roof and replacing it with a new one would be pretty expensive it most likely wont happen, I just wanted to see if that option would be a terrible crime against humanity. My guess is that if I start this project it will stay a cali or I would try to make it so I can swap out the cali roof for a carbon or aluminium one when I want.