I drove pass a prestige car dealership tonight and i was amazed to see a white w126 sitting in the showroom right next to a F430 and a Lotus Elise. Then i have a quick 2nd look, and much to my surprise it was a convertible version. 4 doors with a black roll-over protection bar connecting the 2 B pillars. I have never seen it before, not even on the net. too bad i don't have my camera with me. So all those merc experts out there, espically cawimmer, did Mercedes ever offered the car as special edition or was it a custome aftermarket job.

I'm almost certain it must have been an aftermarket job... I think there were quite a few companies chopping the roof off the coupe, but 4-door versions were much more exclusive. I've seen pictures of a couple, though.

Officially, there were no C126 convertibles but it can be assumed that there were a few aftermarket conversions performed by some firms upon owner request.

Crayford in the UK for example converted a handful of C123 Coupés into Convertibles. Most of them were 280CE's.

Yeah I found one in my area:











Not great, but not awful either I guess. The only thing really out of place on these types of conversions are their top stacks. It has this horrible unfinished look when the top is down.

M

Top up or top down, aftermarket versions don't look great at all, still it looks better then the Top Gear Renault Espace coversion.

Interesting to see this is a 2 door conversion, so the car was cut then welded back together, minus the roof, not an ideal situation. This car probably has the torsional ridgity of a sponge. Don't really understand why people want to do drive around in cars like this. True it looks unique, but there are the good type and the bad type of uniqueness.

All very true. I wouldn't want to have an accident in such a car. It would likely fold right up!

M

i have seen photos of crashes involving such "lego" cars. Basically imagine you drop a lego car from 2m, and that is how these car look after a crash.