Amateur

Hi Folks. I hope you forgive me to hijack this post and ask my own question. I joined the rhocar forum a few months ago and just found this posting. I honestly pray that you that can help me. I have an Exmo and want to have a hood for it. But I am short of the necessary frame structure. I looked for such a thing for a long time. At least here in Germany, where the Exmo is a truely rare breed, there is no such thing on the market. I asked a convertible specialist to build me a custom one. He wanted somewhere 2,000 Euros for it. No way. But I am rather handy with tools. So I consider building my own. But I need a blue print of how this frame structure looks and works. Where are the hinges and places where the thing folds? Where is the hood structure attached to the car? Questions over questions. Without the roll bar, I would probably find a way by looking at other convertible structures. But I have no idea how do I get over or under the roll bar without making it a lot bigger than the outer edge of the boot when the hood is folded away ... I created an emergency roof myself by attaching a piece of lorry tarp to the front screen with Tenax buttons and then tie it down it with straps onto the boot to stretch it over my head with no further stabilisation to it. This in fact keeps away the rain reasonably well and can be folded into a small package nicely to put it into the boot. But it lacks structure and stability. At 80 km/h it starts blowing up to a scary degree and I am afraid that it will rip off one day at full speed and cover the windshield of the car behind me. Therefore I am looking for someone who has a hood with the necessary frame structure that would be nice enough to send me pictures of that frame detailed enough so I can copy it and build my own. Can someone help me out with that? By the way, I solved the issue of not being able to drill holes into the windshield frame by creating an extra frame made of 2,5 mm U-shaped steel that is put over the windshield frame like a glove and then screwed to the side panels that hold the windshield. It weighs about 2,5 kg and looks slightly bulky when attached, but I can drill as many holes into the frame as I like to attach Tenax buttons or screws and it also withstands reasonable pull forces without ripping the windshield apart.

Hi folks. I promised to provide pictures of my door construction once my car ist back from its paint job and completely reassembled. This is now the case. However, the forum site refuses consistently to accept my pics. I therefore have put them into a cloud folder. Hopefully you can see them there. https://c.gmx.net/@324523546229343048/XR33lP2YSb6PDgCrD9KJ0w The door consists of a metal frame (aluminum) with a tent-style soft window in it. I have a metal pin attached to the side of my window frame with a nut on top that also holds the outer frame of my emergency roof in case I need it. The door is screwed onto that upper point and on the low side it attached to 2 Tenax press buttons that are normally used for the rain cover. These 3 points form a vertical line to which the door is attached with hindges. This frame is sturdy enough to hold the door. On the back side, the door is attached to the roll bar with a spring loaded locking bolt. The door keeps the draft almost completely out. That's really cool. The only disadvantage is - as dicussed above - that the doors are to big to store them in my car. So I have to decide at the start of the trip if I want doors or not. If I takem them, there is no option anymore to change my mind and drive open.

Thanks for your ideas. I have to admit that these doors are also V3.0 or so. V2 was also a two parted door. But the issue is the length, not really the height. My pre-owners installed a metal boot cover on the back. The 2 sides up to the roll bar entries are bolted to the frame. Only the space between the roll bars (~97 cm) is open and my doors are something like 105-110 cm long. And the passenger side is not an option for me. I take people with me regularly. All I could do is strap the doors on top of the boot like luggage. But that is not really pretty. I currently have emergency doors which are entirely soft. No rigit parts at all. I have a small steel bar that I attach to the top edge of the windshield and the edge of the rollbar where it curves from vertical to horizonal. That bar and the entry next to the seat are equipped with Tenax buttons and I span the emergency door between those two lines. But it takes several minutes before the door is in and I can start driving or vise versa. It works, but it's not really an elegant solution.

Hi folks. I decided that my Exmo needs doors for when it's cold or wet. And since I could not find any doors that fit my expectations, I decided to build them myself. I created a simple aluminum frame and put 2mm plexi glas on it instead of a soft cover. And while the ready made doors slope forward at the rear end, my doors slope backwards from the lower start of the rear fender, ending just a few inches short of the top edge of the roll bar where my doors get fastened. Maybe a little heavier overall (2.3 kg/door), but they are sturdy enough to not shake when driving and they keep the icy wind out when I drive my seven on sunny days in winter at near freezing temeratures. And in case it rains and I have to put the roof on (that I am also about to fit to the car), the opening is large enough so I still manage to fold into the car (I am not 20 anymore ). But the downside is, that the doors do not fit into that tiny boot of the seven. If I put the doors on to keep wind and slashy water out, I cannot take them off during a trip. So I have to come up with another, more flexible solution for those summer days when I want to enjoy the wind around my head while it's dry but still be prepared in case it rains. Now I wonder if those ready-made doors would fit into the back of the seven. Can anyone tell me? That would be great. You'd probably be interested on how these doors look. But writing this post I reallized that I never made pictures of them and my seven just went away to get a new paint job. So all I can provide today is a picture to the right driver side door leaning against my garage wall. I promise to add better pics of the doors attached to my car once the car is back and put together again.

I love that little gap in the GB legislation. It also made my RH 10 years older than it actually is. In Germany, oldtimers are favored by quite low annual taxes and insurance fees - supposedly because oldtimers are hobby vehicles and do low milage. Besides, they are excempted from the restricted emissions areas in cities. For that status the car has to be 30+ years old. Mine is now on paper 33 years old, so cost of ownership is low and I can enter any city I like even without a cat converter.... cool.

Hi Sparepart. This is SUPER GREAT !!! Many thanks for your effort to do that and share it with us. Nice puzzle you had there laid out on the ground I'm sure the videos will be useful in one or the other repair attempt. But I could not open the files starting with "XMO*". It seems to be an unusual codec. Had to run them through my format converter app first. The sound quality is a little bad, but the video resolution is good enough for the purpose. We are all spoiled with HD resolution nowadays...

The person saying that the Exmo is an exotic in Germany was me As said above, the Exmo was produced only a few hundred times and looking at those that still exist after 20 years and among those the cars that made it to Germany, the number is no longer really big. The DEKRA in Dessau, Germany collects spec sheets for foreign cars that are registered on German streets (according to §21 StVZO). They have quite a decent database. But when I checked with them if they have such a spec sheet for the Exmo, I war told they do not have one - supposedly because not too many exist in Germany.

Many thanks for the info. I had already found the URL you offered. But the info there isn't too detailed either. It's quite interesting that they actually fitted a V8 in there. My papers specify a Pinto with 85 hp. But the German TÜV even refused to allow me to increase it to 100 hp, at least not without providing tons of technical certificates for each and every nut and bold on that car. Maybe more users read this thread and can add more info. I guess the Exmo owners will be happy to read about it.

Hi folks. I'm new here and looking for some model information about my car. I own a Robin Hood Exmo with a 2 litre Ford Pinto. When I bought the car it was in rather sad shape. The car had a new paint job done and looked perfect on the outside (which lured me into buying it :-( ). But technically the car turned out to be a disaster. The engine was undrivable below 3,500 rpm and I had to renew all wiring (the front lights were connected in a row!!) to name just the worst issues. After a good 2 years I now have the car back in decent order and now want to know a little more about the history of that model. My car did not come with a documented history. The title says the car was first registered in 1987 which is definitely wrong as the Exmo was (to my information) introduced to the market in the 1990s. It's the donor car's date. I'd like to learn a little a more about the following information - from when to when was the Exmo model produced? - how many of them were sold? - was only the Sierra used a donor car? - with which engine was the car equipped originally? Sadly, the web does not really provide much information. I tried to contact Great British Sports Cars twice, but they never bothered to answer me. And in Germany, where I live, the Exmo is considered a rare exotic and no one can help me here. So I now try my luck with you since the car originally came from GB. If anyone of you can provide a little info to me, I wold be really grateful.