topachopa-101

The CHOP lines are marked on the side of the Super Beetle body.

There are 3 pillars to cut. They are referred to as the A, B & C Pillars.

Or Front-Middle & Rear.

For the 6" chop we are doing, we had to make sure we would not cut in an area that would not have a chance to be aligned when we put the cut away top back on the body. Our Chop is not a conventional one (as if there is a convention). 6" chops are a little to much for the show car crowd, because the car starts to look like a stomped on coke can. We need to beat the top as low as we can for aerodynamic purposes. We are not going to split the top into multiple corners, and add metal to fit. We will use two tops so we can lengthen as required, but the width will be left alone.

The sweet spot to reference the chop lines from is shown in the C pillar pic above It's 34" back from the front edge of the B pillar and 7.5 " up from the straight body line on the car body. The cuts on the A pillar are shown in the other pic check out http://www.runtrod.com/ for some good tech articles on top chopping. Tex Smith has a book if your real serious about it.