turning a coupe into a speedster

Hi all,

Just out of sheer curiosity, I was wondering if it would be possible to turn an original A coupe into a speedster. I have read in the sightings section how several movie cars were cut down to look like speedsters, & I am just curious to see what would potentially be involved. Any thoughts?

Maybe it would need to be reinforced to prevent the body from caving in?

I'll tell you what...if you find a nice enough coupe that is worth investing time and money into it, I'll trade you my Speedster. That's how you chop it down.

This topic came up on another forum some time ago, and from what I understand every panel from the front 'firewall' back, is different. Therefore there would be a LOT of metal fabrication work required, and it would end up being very expensive. AND, given the nature of the beast, the resale value would be terrible. You could say you would struggle to 're-coupe' your money......
That's not to say it hasn't been done - there's a picture of coupe in the process of being converted to a Speedster in the book 'Porsche 356 and RS Spyders'. This was probably from when you could pick up a decent A coupe for next to nothing, which may make such a project viable.
IMHO you can't beat a good replica.

Harry Pellow did just that. I believe he used a C car. It was called the "coupester" There are pictures of it around. It did not look much like a speedster but it had the low windshield.

Cool idea! If you check the profiles of the coupe and the speedster you'll see that you'll be MUCH better off picking up a rear speedster clip and glassing it on. BUT, if you really want to try it in all metal, you can get most of the way there by converting the coupe into a cabriolet. The cab profile more closely matches the coupe and the passenger compartment opening is longer and less "turtle backed" so that you can cut and lower the coupe to match it a bit easier. The coupe windshield stays in place with a new top cap, and the side windows are also used "as is"

The benefit will be that even with the raised rear, you can just lower the back of the top bows and immitate a mild "chopped top" look to great effect.

Rather than use all Porsche sheet metal, you'd be well off grabbing up a Karmann Ghia Cabrio and using the inner bulkheads, top and frame, and probably windshield header as well and modify to fit. Save a LOT of money and end up with a nice look.

The coupester that Dale mentioned was a very awkward looking race only car and I think that the folks at Parts Obsolete were owners or builders or involved in some way at one point. If they were, it must have gone like stink, even if it looked pretty stinky doing so.

Why?????