Easily removable top for boattail ?
 

I was farting around sketching some on an idea for a boattail that i will never build for my car.
Since i will never build this thing, i thought i would see if anyone here has had any similar ideas.

One of the issues with building a boattail is access to the back of the car through the hatch.

Here is an idea that allows a full size bicycle to be loaded into the back of the car without lifting the bike overhead.
Instead of building a larger hatch and attaching it to the original hatch mounting points, this hatch simply lifts off with four quick fasteners.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8475/8...9e6eb698_b.jpg

If needed, two support beams can then be released and slid to the side, again with quick fasteners.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8049/8...da9e1e1bbe.jpg

This allows full access to the back 'trunk/boot' of the car .

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8335/8...f319830c26.jpg

Early 50s International trucks and Buick cars had a hood that had an integrated latch/hinge mechanism on the sides. You could unlatch and lift either side, or do both latches and lift it off completely. I'd want to incorporate locks, too.

Hmmm.
Could possibly make the center and rear panels out of lean or acrylic and be able to see out the back.

I've been thinking about a side-latched or front-latched hinge, maybe with optional detach, and also thinking steel reinforcements for the bottom. I think it's a mistake (at least in my usage) to neglect the "truck-like" qualities of a hatch. The right boattail design could enhance the truck-like functionality rather than hinder it. (By truck-like functionality, I mean odd-size loads, not to exceed 200ish lbs in the tail.) A detachable side-latch hinge seems like a no-compromise design to me.

If you're removing the top, why not extend its sides down to the cargo floor level? Then you could attach the top half to the stock hinges/struts and take advantage of what's already there.

This would almost certainly have to be rigid- fiberglass or something. Maybe a rigid structure with all the panels made of clear acrylic or lexan

Oh, I see now what you did. Four of us stepped right up.

Whuups .... actually, there are windows in the illustration . I'll have to colorize those areas.:o

I was looking at the cost of Lexan in large sheets and also thinking of the problems with complex curves, so why not use a minimum of the stuff and just have windows in the areas that are the real blind spots ?

If you notice, only the bottom half of the tail is Lexan, since this is where the line of sight is when i look out the window. Any more is wasted cost.

Also, there are windows on the sides, but no complex curvature is involved.

Great idea.:thumbup:
The main issue here being weight.......unless the tail was made from Coroplast ( Which i intended to do by using sections of the stuff for complex curves )

Looks similar to mine.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...tRebuild11.jpg

Yup. I was inspired by your tail Mike :thumbup:, but I wanted to change a few things about it to save cost ( the windows ) and provide easy access to my bike.

Or extend just the rear end down to cargo level, and keep the sides on the lower, sturdier structure - doing so makes the hatch lighter.