ok, my buddy and I are planning on getting an old super beetle and making a convertible out of it. we don't intend on spending a lot of money on it but i am stickler for quality so it's not going to be a shit hole. it will be used as a Sunday driver so we're not worried about making a canvas top or anything. well my question is for those who have been around a bit and has an eye for structure, i would like to know whether the factory convertible has the same chassis as the regular hard top? i realize that it is a unibody car so cutting off the roof will weaken the structure considerably so what did VW do solve this problem?

any help would be appreciated
thanks,
Andrew

Convertible bodies have stiffening rails that run front to back under the rocker panels. Cutting the roof off a regular beetle weakens it significantly. I speak from experience. We chopped the roof of an old junker & were driving it around. We hit a bump & the body flexed so much the doors sprang open.

so is it a completely different chassis or is it the same one with added rails? if the rails are added i could always fab something up

The pans are the same, the bodies are different, convertibles have stiffening rails.

thanks for the help