I purchased some high quality hardtop brackets from a reputable seller six months ago. Today I tried to attach them. Here is the problem. The bottom of the brackets fit the body just fine. However the tops of the brackets where they attach to the hardtop do not fit. The holes are spaced differently.

My car is a 1999 Miata, five speed. I am fairly certain the hardtop is an OEM hardtop. It looks like the photos of factory hardtops. It has a defroster. It is in very good shape. I believe it is a newer top, possibly 2003 2004.

Does anyone know if the later hardtops had different mounting spaces for the upper part of the front and side latches.

If so a photo of the newer vs a photo of the older would help me a lot.

Thanks

 

If you take off the latches on your top, there should be a date stamped somewhere on the underside. If they are the original latches then you have a good guess to what year your top is. I have a '99 hardtop on my '05 MSM. I have used latches from a '90 out of the junkyard temporarily on my '99 top with no issues. I have not tried swapping the '05 latches off of my soft top onto the '99 hard top yet.

 

Thanks Ozbrock. However, I think I've solved the problem. Seems like I bought what I thought was a factory hardtop but is instead a "SnugTop" clone! I didn't know until now.
See about the sixth post down for a photo of the snugtop fastener locations at
I could do with some hints re identifying an OEM Mazda hardtop: Grassroots Motorsports forum: Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

That is what mine looks like. So. Will be out looking for a factory hardtop this weekend.

If anyone else has had this problem would like to hear from you on this thread.

 

Correction. Seventh post down.