Here at The Autopian, it’s generally frowned upon to use the royal “we” but sometimes it’s accurate. For instance, we all love weird automotive minutiae, like the time Ford tried to compete with the dual sliding doors on Chrysler’s third-generation minivans with one ridiculously long driver’s door. In that spirit, there’s one bizarre detail on the third-generation Chrysler Sebring Convertible and its Chrysler 200 Convertible successor that I simply can’t keep to myself any longer. It all has to do with the top situation.
The last Chrysler Sebring convertible was more frequently off-putting than it was endearingly quirky. From the bizarrely almost-corrugated hood that was once compared to a hog shed to a cabin that felt particularly Avis-grade, the car wasn’t exactly impressive when it appeared. Sure, it could be somewhat feature-rich with options like a heated and cooled cupholder and a Boston Acoustics audio system, but it wasn’t exactly a car worth writing home about, except when it came to one feature.
Despite obvious signs of cost-cutting from the mediocre interior materials to the standard four-speed automatic transmission, Chrysler decided to go with the bizarre redundancy of developing two different folding roofs. As expected, a power-operated soft top upholstered in vinyl on the base LX trim and canvas on the Touring and Limited trims was standard, and it was the sort of thing that did the job. It kept rain off of the occupants when up, featured a glass window instead of a plastic one to avoid hazing over time and allow for a defroster, and stowed below deck for those days when the sun is shining.
That alone would’ve been fine and dandy, but Chrysler also commissioned from Karmann a power-retractable hardtop that was available as an option for $2,170 on the Touring trim and $1,995 on the Limited trim. That’s suspiciously cheap for a folding metal roof large enough to cover a four-seat passenger compartment, which really begs the question of how Chrysler was able to cut costs by that much considering all the stampings and seals and other new parts required to go from textile to steel.
Ah, well, you see, Chrysler managed to achieve that by massively compromising on the standard soft top assembly. One nice thing about a fabric roof is that fabric folds up easily and compactly, and many four-seat soft-top convertibles concertina their roofs and stow them in wells just behind the rear seats, meaning luggage space is often affected as little as necessary. In contrast, a folding metal roof consists of massive sections that fold in on each other, often requiring the entire trunk lid to have a separate set of reverse hinges, and prone to taking up an outsized amount of luggage space with the top stowed.
Likely to save money, Chrysler decided to re-use significant parts of the folding hardtop mechanism for the soft top, resulting in a fabric roof that takes up a huge amount of trunk space because it simply doesn’t fold as tightly as it probably should. As a result, stowing the soft top chopped the trunk volume from 13 cu.-ft. to a mere seven, a significant compromise considering the Ford Mustang convertible of the era offered the same 10 cu.-ft. of luggage space top-up or top-down.
On the plus side, the metal panels did offer increased cutting resistance compared to fabric, but they did add weight and make for a roof that was slower to operate. When Car And Driver put both roofs through their paces for its August 2007 issue, the magazine found that the retractable hardtop took an additional three seconds to open and close. Considering the soft top already required 26 seconds to open and 27 seconds to close, three extra seconds could really contribute to traffic light anxiety, not to mention the amount of time spent feeling self-conscious while waiting for the roof to open.
Chrysler proudly noted in the brochure that “Sebring Convertible is the first four-passenger convertible to offer either a power soft top or an available retractable hardtop.” My only response to that is “Why?” Sure, on-paper, hardtop convertibles were a big deal in the late 2000s and models like the Pontiac G6 Convertible and Volkswagen Eos offered them, but with a soft top assembly this compromised by shared parts, why not just go all-hardtop?
The thing is, product planners and marketing departments will do unspeakable things to reach a particular advertised price point, and with four-figure savings over a hardtop, having a textile roof as standard helped the Sebring Convertible and later 200 Convertible stay competitive on pricing. Unsurprisingly, it’s not a move that stuck with the industry, as the Mazda MX-5 is currently the only machine I can think of to still offer both a soft top and a retractable hardtop on the same model. Still, what a weird thing, right? A four-seat convertible with the choice of either a soft-top or a retractable hardtop!
(Top graphic image: Chrysler)
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Having the folding mechanism spread out across the trunk space caused the ridiculous upswept belt line need to conceal it. Rather than the convertible drop space stated in the article that the previous generations had which had a rather flat belt line from windshield to the rear of the car which I felt gave them a much more balanced and pleasing styling. It’s a shame Daimler took what was a pretty solid mid tier halo model for the Chrysler brand for the first two generations, tried to move it upscale while significantly cheapening the interior and giving it styling cues that just made one scratch their head wondering overall what was the styling effect they were after.
Had a rental years ago.
It was horrendously cheap compared to previous gen Sebring convertibles.
Far uglier too.
Could not fit our luggage in the trunk w the roof down.
Had to toss it in the back seat.
Reminded me of 1960’s Thunderbird Convertibles that way.
Except zero brand cachet or design excellence.
My mother in law had a hard top Sebring, it was her pride and joy until someone tried to turn left when she has the green.
Only drove it with the top down once and in the later years it wouldn’t go up or down at all. It had all the makings of a gentle summer cruiser except that it had among the least comfortable seats I’ve experienced. Hard, flat and lacking support. Honestly the old plastic school chairs would have been more comfortable. Also the interior was a like a temu Rolex. Nice enough at first glance but spend some time in it and it was cheap.
Michael Scott approves. There is nothing else to say, deal with it.
It’s weird, but I think it made sense. Chrysler had sold a good amount of softtop Sebrings up to that point, not every retail customer probably felt the need for a hardtop and not for the extra cost. Rental companies definitely were fine with the cheaper option.
So… they just put a vinyl top on the retractable hardtop then?
At least the Miata keeps it’s manual operation for the soft-top. Less to break, and it takes under second to open and not much more to close, and it can all be done from the drivers seat at a stoplight. I know that’s much easier to do on a 2 seater though.
The NC Miata Power Retractable Hardtop was much more traditional. The ND-RF isn’t quite the same as the soft-top. The effect is more of a T-Top with a retractable rear window. They are all engineered very well though, and have proven to be pretty reliable.
As the owner of an NC2 PRHT, the roof folds down into the same well as the soft top. It’s a great design.
The Miata is more the opposite where they built the hardtop to conform to the soft top’s design. It’s pretty ingenious because they don’t have to change much between them with the targa top using the same space as the soft top, also preserving storage and, of course, saving a lot of money. The only issue I have is that the method kind of requires a power hardtop, as stowing that manually would be a fairly difficult task and I don’t think the (non-power) Del Sol solution would work. Being power means it’s heavier and costs more than it needs to, though most buyers probably don’t care, prefer the convenience, or just choose the soft top.
I had an NC1 PRHT and the top never gave me any issues (unlike the Bose CD player – common issue in NCs). The top was up and down in like 15 seconds…I couldn’t imagine twice that amount of time to cover my face in the 200
The cloth top had to be for rental fleets right?
“Chrysler proudly noted in the brochure that “Sebring Convertible is the first four-passenger convertible to offer either a power soft top or an available retractable hardtop.””
They were too busy trying to do something they never asked if they should do it at all.
This is one of those things that you don’t want to be first, since its something that any number of car companies could have done decades before and all collectively realized was dumb.
Ah yes, Chrysler gonna Chrysler.
“Sebring Convertible is the first four-passenger convertible to offer either a power soft top or an available retractable hardtop.”
Because the 1957 Ford Skyliner was a six-passenger car!
Ah, but the ’57-59 Ford soft tops are Sunliners whereas the retractables are Skyliners. Two completely different names! Doesn’t count!
(Speaking as the former owner of a ’59 Skyliner…)
[laughing emoji] I was 1000000% sure someone would make a pedantic reply!
It’s a 50s thing. A Bel Aire is a Chevy, and a 210 is a Chevy, but they’re not the same car. Technically.
Yeah, but they were both Fairlanes, Sunliner and Skyliner denoted the body styles, but they were part of the same model series
Huh. TIL. I knew they offered a hard top but didn’t realize the standard convertible used the same weird mechanisms.
One of times I was proudest of my wife is when we were at a car rental agency in Maui picking up a convertible for our honeymoon. My wife saw a bunch of Sebrings sitting ready to go, but instead elected to wait 30+ minutes for the Mustang that she saw being returned as we were there but still had to be cleaned and processed.
Usually “we need to talk” is followed by a much more unpleasant conversation. I’d take a convertible chat any day of the week.
Fun fact on the next generation, with the 200 convertible, you often cannot lower the top in parking garages, or even home garages because the top goes vertical before it starts folding and stands up incredibly tall. I can’t remember how high up it went, but I remember reading that about it when it was new and thought it was funny. I assume it’s an exaggeration, but quick searching does suggest you need at minimum 8 ft to lower the roof, which when the car is only 4.5 ft tall, that seems like a lot.
So the retractable hardtop was gone but the compromises made for it lingered on?
I believe that the 200 had a hardtop option as well didn’t it? Maybe not, but yeah the compromises continued. Pretty typical from Chrysler/FCA/Cialis and whatever other names.
The choice of tops did carry over to the 200. I would assume it was the same for both Sebring and 200, I wouldn’t think they would have reengineered it that much in the facelift?