I know there will be many bobble hat owners who claim to drive all year long with the roof down but this year I chose for the sensible approach of not bothering with a car cover but instead buying a hard top. Now I find myself wondering when the optimal time to put it in storage is?
Answers from owners of such items please. Removal hard tops, not wooly hats.
I dodge the issue by taking it on and off quite often. I put it on in the summer when I expect to be away from the safety of the garage often, or doing a long motorway journey for fuel economy. I take it off in the winter, when it looks like a bobble hat day as you mentioned!
Choice is yours really , my HT’s won’t be coming off yet, but just be aware it is safer to raise and drop a mohair skin in colder weather than it is vinyl skins and plastic rear windows.
M-m
Take it off when it stops raining, unfortunately I can’t predict when that’ll be.
Already taken mine off - we actually had a sunny day here on the south coast a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t resist it! I have managed to enjoy a couple of hood-down drives on the days when there has been a little bit of sunshine since!
Just wish it would stop raining so that I could enjoy it a bit more often though?!!!
My car had a hard-top when I bought it in 2004. I took it off and stored it safely as soon as I got the car home. I realised in 2008 that I’d never put it back on, so I sold it via this club to a fellow MX5 owner. I’ve never regretted that choice.
I’m down south too, was tempted last week but today’s awful weather has made me realise I need to wait .
Sell the car, buy a PRHT, and never have the problem again. 
I’ve just bought a detachable hardtop, if it was the same colour as my MX-5 rather than black it’d probably be on all summer.
Where can i buy a wooly hat
I’ve had my Mk 1 for nearly 5 years now. I’m in the south west and tend to put the hard top on in October/November and take it off around Easter. That seems to work best for me.
Murphy’s Law guarantees that the day after you take the hard top off, the weather will change for the worse. In my case, changing to summer tyres last Tuesday seems to have guaranteed max temperatures of 5°C for the next few weeks.
… and in the UK, I seem to recall that bad weather can be guaranteed for an August Bank Holiday. Certainly the PRHT seems to have been custom designed for the UK.
David
It’s not a problem I was just interested in learning from someone’s experience. I prefer the look of the soft top.
I don’t see the point of hard tops. If you put it on for winter you miss many great sunny top-down days. Why not just put the hood up on non-top-down-days? In the ND it takes about 2 seconds. I had a roadster NC and that took 12 seconds for roof up or down - but seemed a lot longer!
I think owners feel that, if the car is left on the street in an isolated spot, a hard top is more secure. Whether this is true or not, I do not know; but it factored into my decision to get an RF.
David
I find that the best time to take the hard top off or on is when you have somebody to help you.
Nope, nothing to do with that.
I like the rag top in summer but the roof isn’t as good on the one on our 2 series bimmer soft top ( that ones double skinned). I found myself putting a cover on the Mazda and using one of the other cars, which was a shame. So bought a hard top in same colour as car and it made it loads better in the wet cold weather.
Getting to point where I’m looking forward to removing it now, even though I like the look. Oh and yes its definitely a two person job!!
My Mariner Blue Eunos looked a different car with the matching hard top on.
Your car looks very nice: I like the panoramic rear window, though personally I would prefer a PRHT.
David
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