These Are The Weirdest Convertibles Ever Built By This Infamous Custom Drop-Top Shop
As a Los Angeles County native, we always referred to visiting Orange County as crossing the orange curtain because of the stark shift in political tendencies. We know things work a bit differently in OC, but that’s no excuse for the wacky convertible conversions that come out of Newport Convertible Engineering in Huntington Beach, California. This is the birthplace of the infamous convertible woodie Porsche Cayenne, for reference.
Non-OEM convertible conversions and the companies that engineer them are incredibly important in automotive history. Some of the most successful convertible conversion specialists include Wilhelm Karmann GmbH and the American Sunroof Company (ASC), both of which were commissioned by OEMs to design folding roofs for production cars. Fans of classic cars will recognize both of those names, since they’ve been tacked onto a few popular convertibles like the Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia and the ASC/McLaren Ford Mustang and Mercury Capri. Both Karmann and ASC eventually became OEM suppliers, with ASC playing a role in the development of a diverse array of convertibles like the BMW Z3, Saab 900 convertible, Chevrolet SSR, and Nissan 300ZX convertible to name a few. Karmann helped Volkswagen develop the Beetle Cabriolet and Golf Cabriolet, as well as hard tops like the Scirocco and Corrado, and many more models from different companies, too.
Newport Convertible Engineering doesn’t have quite the same pedigree as ASC or Karmann just yet, but that doesn’t mean the company should be counted out. Nowadays, it seems as though automakers are shying away from the complication and expense of developing new cars with folding roofs, so converters like these may be growing more important for those of us who like going topless. That said, Newport Convertible Engineering has been commissioned to turn some very unlikely candidates from stock hardtops into custom cloth tops. This is a list of the weirdest convertibles made by Orange County’s most infamous custom shop.
