• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

bn6/7 hardtop

Share this page

maxwedge5281

maxwedge5281

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
there was a nice two seater factory hardtop on ebay that bidding ended on yesterday about noon. it sold for 3800 which seems to be a good price. however it was the wrong color for me, did not have latching hardware, and i would have had to drive to pennsylvania to pick it up,,,seller would not ship. also for my needs the three piece rear glass would need to be replaced...so...all this added another 1000-1500 dollars so i based my top bid on that premise.
i am still looking but perhaps a new one might not be so much more expensive. does anyone have experience with pete farmer tops? cape international tops? nical engineering tops? trying to decide which one appears to be closest to the factory hardtop. does the two seater top and the four seater top have the same overall dimensions? any pictures or advice appreciated!
 
I have been looking at one for my BJ-8 and have been looking at the sources you have listed. We have a club member that was looking for a 2-seater top for from these same sources.

A H Spares sells them also but not one for a 2-seater and do not know who makes them.

From my understanding, Pete Farmers will be a very good fitting top. I think they all come partially assembled and you have to do the rest but do not know what that entails. However, they are not an exact factory original type but they still look nice. He does not have all the aluminum pieces and the vent is not an original type.

I saw a BJ-8 top from Cape International this fall on a car. Not the best quality. I think they come already painted. His was black. The fiberglass was chunky looking, waves in it. The aluminum trim was not very good looking. I don't know who makes theirs.

From everything I can gather, Nical Engineering may be the nearest to factory looking but by far the most expensive for a 2 seater.

See these two posts and maybe they can give you input. I would be interested to what you find.

https://www.britishcarforum.com/bcf/showthread.php?66389-BJ7-or-BJ8-Nical-hardtop-ques

https://www.britishcarforum.com/bcf/showthread.php?10527-NICAL-100-Hardtop
 
My understanding of the hardtop situation.... Cape Int'l gets theirs from someone.... think it's Pete Farmer but could be Nical. I'm pretty sure that Nical and Farmer are the only ones making hardtops so imagine all hardtops being sold are from one of those two.

Nical's is the most original... Nick Freeman, owner of Nical Engineering took is mold off an original that needed complete restoration (fiberglass was badly deteriorated)...I was also told that he got the patterns for the aluminum from the factory when they closed down production (the late Jonathan Everard of JME Healey's in the UK said he used Nical's). So the good news is that's it's extremely accurate... the bad news is that it's extremely accurate. Meaning, that the problems with the original also exist on the reproductions. Supposedly, Pete Farmer has maintained the original look but fixed the issues with the original hardtops... I've never seen a Pete Farmer hardtop so I can't verify that... nor can I comment on the Farmer quality since I haven't seen one.

I have a Nical hardtop on mine BJ7.... it's a good fit, albeit with the issues of the original. I've seen/inspected an original and it seems to be exactly like my Nical hardtop (or, I guess it's really the other way around)..

FWIW.

Cheers,
Steve
 
HealeyPassion said:
My understanding of the hardtop situation.... Cape Int'l gets theirs from someone.... think it's Pete Farmer but could be Nical. I'm pretty sure that Nical and Farmer are the only ones making hardtops so imagine all hardtops being sold are from one of those two.

Nical's is the most original... Nick Freeman, owner of Nical Engineering took is mold off an original that needed complete restoration (fiberglass was badly deteriorated)...I was also told that he got the patterns for the aluminum from the factory when they closed down production (the late Jonathan Everard of JME Healey's in the UK said he used Nical's). So the good news is that's it's extremely accurate... the bad news is that it's extremely accurate. Meaning, that the problems with the original also exist on the reproductions. Supposedly, Pete Farmer has maintained the original look but fixed the issues with the original hardtops... I've never seen a Pete Farmer hardtop so I can't verify that... nor can I comment on the Farmer quality since I haven't seen one.

I have a Nical hardtop on mine BJ7.... it's a good fit, albeit with the issues of the original. I've seen/inspected an original and it seems to be exactly like my Nical hardtop (or, I guess it's really the other way around)..

FWIW.

Cheers,
Steve
Click to expand...
I can't wait to get started on installing my Nical Hardtop on my BJ8. Please post your blog website again. Thanks!
 
Maxwedge--

I must have been very lucky when I bought a 2-seater hardtop for my then-wife's BN7 about 7-8 years ago: There was a fellow with an AACA Gold level BN6 who sold his car to a person who did not want the hardtop. I bought it for $2000.00 and after new windlacing and a paint job I had a very good top.

Forget about trying to use or change a 4-seater top. They are absolutely different animals and many folks have learned the hard way that if you have a two-seater you need a two-seater top. You just cannot use the more common four seater tops and adapt them. BTW the back window is one piece--not three. The two bars fit inside the back window and are there, I guess, to stabilize the shape of the top.

I bought a top for my 100 from Nical when he came over to Conclave in North Carolina to sell his BJ tops and he also brought along the 100 model. I can only hope that Nick has become more responsive to customers' needs than he was when I--and the late Healey maven Dave Russell--were fitting his tops and side curtains to our cars. The curtains he initially sold me and the back window he furnished were way far from correct and though he eventually did come across with acceptable replacements it took a lot of cajoling and patience to get him to do so.

I don't know whether he and Farmer used different patterns--they each seemed to claim to have the best product that the other ripped off but in any case try to see an example before you purchase anything as these parts are expensive and obviously not returnable.
 
Last edited:
michael, is the two seater top the same overall dimension as the four seater, with the difference being along the rear of the top where it meets the surface of the body? yes, i knew the rear window was one piece, but the ebay car had as he called it a rally works rear which was made in three seperate pieces. the two outside pieces actually had what appeared to be maybe 6 one inch holes drilled into the perplex??? or what ever material! i had never seen that before.
 
I have a Nical hardtop on my BJ8. Purchased it in 1999. Got around to installing it a few years into the restoration. Difficult to assemble and get on, but pleased with the results. I haven't dared take it off since....
 
hmj6854:

Got any photos of it showing the trim?

Did yours come painted?

How many pieces did it come in, crated?

Fiberglass smooth?

Thanks if you can do this, understand if you can not. I have not figured out how to post photos. Probably is simple.

Jeff
 
Here is a photo of my BN7 that I had just purchased in San Francisco in 1988. The top was unique. Unfortunately, it got blown off the car and was severely damaged as I was towing it. I was too dumb to realize it could have been repaired. I do not know the name of the manufacturer. I know it is not Nical, Dyna-plastics, Cape Intl, Smoothline, AH spares, Kellison, or Ashley Laminates. DOES ANYONE RECOGNIZE THIS TOP? I am just curious as to where it was manufactured.
 

Attachments

  • Healey top 1.jpg
    Healey top 1.jpg
    49.4 KB · Views: 169
  • Healey top.jpg
    Healey top.jpg
    69.5 KB · Views: 158
Last edited:
yes that is a bit too unique for mei i am asking about a two seater factory hardtop or a very close reproduction of one. i imagine that top would be quite valuable today. thanks for the pictures!
 
i just received a quote from pete farmer for a complete hardtop...much like the factory hardtop....4200 pounds and the rear window has to be fitted and the top painted...3800 dollars for the ebay top was a steal. wish i had received the quote sooner. i would have bid much more than 3750!!! and the top has to be shipped which would put the cost of a new factory reproduction top at or above 7000 dollars!!! a ridiculous price in my estimation...
 
Mert said:
Here is a photo of my BN7 that I had just purchased in San Francisco in 1988. The top was unique. Unfortunately, it got blown off the car and was severely damaged as I was towing it. I was too dumb to realize it could have been repaired.
Click to expand...

I think that was the ACME top (no relation to Wile E. Coyote)

acme_hly_hdtp_001.jpg
 
"michael, is the two seater top the same overall dimension as the four seater, with the difference being along the rear of the top where it meets the surface of the body?"

Maxswedge--

I do not have any tops to measure but I assume that the two and four-seater tops would be of similar dimension except where the top contacts the rear deck or squab. The two-seater top is definitely longer and the window is bigger. Theoretically you could make a two-seater top into one for a four-seater but not vica versa.
 
To my knowledge the Healey 2 seater hard top is different than the 4 seater and they are not interchangeable nor modifiable to suite the other.
 
Has anyone come across an aluminum (presumably after-market) hard top for these cars? One of my project cars, a BN4, came with one of these hardtops. The rear window appears to match the original in size and shape, and it has the two support bars inside by the window. I'm wondering who made these tops and anything else about them.
 
Back
Top