Need Help with Vinyl Roof Disease on '72 Scamp

I would not recommend the "make it a convertible" route. I had actually thought that when we did the roof swap on my car. That is far more complicated than it sounds to do. Convertible cars have a lot more reinforcement in the chassis than your car likely does.

You mentioned that the roof frame was in bad shape underneath. What exactly was wrong with it? I can imagine it is covered in rust, but I would doubt it is damaged from the rust; probably just heavy surface rust. I realized after I went through the trouble with my roof swap that the frame underneath was fine and I could have salvaged it by media blasting it "clean." Then I could have probably just done a roof skin swap. My complicated process was the result of working with a rat rod guy who just wanted to chop **** up.