pin 21 an incompressible drive cable 23 is fastened to the rear end 22 of inner telescoping tube 19 said cable being guided in a guide tube 24 fastened to the fixed part of the roof drive cable 23 runs to a drive motor 25 indicated schematically in fig1 said motor being mountable at any appropriate point for example in the trunk of the motor vehicle optionally any known manual drive mechanism can be provided to actuate drive cable 23 said mechanism comprising for example a hand crank located in the vicinity of the leading edge of roof opening 11 beneath fixed roof part 10 for example in order to move sliding cover 12 from the half open position in fig4 to the closed position in fig2 drive cable 23 is displaced forward by means of drive motor 25 drive cable 23 drives sliding cover 12 by means of inner telescoping tube 19 outer telescoping tube 14 and transport bridge 13 until the leading edge of the sliding cover strikes the leading edge of roof opening 11 fig3 further displacement of drive cable 23 telescoping tubes 14 and 19 and transport bridge 13 causes sliding cover 12 to be raised in the vicinity of its trailing edge and thereby move from the position shown in fig3 to the position shown in fig2 the lifting mechanism not shown in greater detail can be designed in any known fashion for example it can be a crank device fig3 german pat no 1 228 950 or a lever mechanism fig1 german pat no 2 461 018 and corresponding u s pat no 4 056 274 as can be seen in detail in fig5 and 6 bearing member 16 is provided with three spring tongues 27 28 and.