Well, fast-forward not quite a year after obtaining the object of my desire and I've gone and sold it. I best equate this experience to "the hot chick", you saw her from afar, man she was pretty, wouldn't it be nice to spend some time with her! So by some twist of fate you landed that beauty, but after living with her for a little while you started to see the realities of day to day life with her and the picture loses some gloss......you get the story.
A Saratoga Top is made of lightly tinted Lexan, this is particularly nice to look out of on a moonlit night (one that for some unknown reason you didn't want the top off for) but try hoping it gives you any respite from 100°+ Gulf Coastal summer sun and you might as well expect a 3 year old not to argue with you.
Secondly there's a storage issue, when I first got it I was proud to announce that "I have a '75, without a brake booster, a hardtop was designed to fit in the trunk" Well, in theory this is correct, in practice it's not so great. It JUST fits, it rests uncomfortably on top of the battery, and has a tenancy to wiggle into just the wrong place to want to unlatch the hood. The alternative is that it "will" fit behind the seats, problem here is that just like the trunk it just barely sits there, it rubs on the top corners and against the rear seatbacks (laying down). I lived in regular fear of harming this pretty thing irreparably.
All this combined to leave me less than thrilled with it as a useable item, the only time I loved it was when my car was sitting parked and I could stare at how pretty it was. My 911 is not a showpiece, it's not a garage queen, I don't drive it daily, but I do drive it once or twice a week and my ultimate (and likely years long) goal is that it functions as a real car. Combine this with the fact that I tend to run on limited funds (unfortunately) and thus am not really in a position to hang something as nice (and valuable) like this on a wall, buy an additional top, and use it as an occasional change.
So I placed an ad on Pelican and within 30 minutes it was sold to a new admirer (there are a lot of admirers of this hot chick, I could probably have fetched 3 times more on evil-bay but I'm not that kinda guy). And I was able to procure a fairly nice example of the folding top Porsche found to be the best solution for about 30 years. It needs a little adjustment (what on my car doesn't) but so far it may not be quite as gorgeous but it's not nearly as demanding of my space and stress level and been a little easier to live with ;)
