About Tops, Inc.
Tops, Inc. is a small auto-upholstery shop in Vero Beach, Florida. We've been at it a long time, in the same building, with a small core team that's stayed mostly the same year on year. The work that walks in the door has changed (more daily-driver re-trims in the 1990s, more classic restorations now). The way we do the work hasn't.
What "not your average upholstery shop" actually means
Anyone can stitch fabric. The difference between an average job and one you'll still be proud of in fifteen years sits in the parts you can't see: the foam underneath, the pattern of the cut, how the stitch lines hide seams, the tension in the corner of a top panel where the fabric has to do two things at once.
We were taught the trade by people who had been doing it since the 1960s. They were strict. There were ways to do things and ways not to do things, and some of those ways are still embedded in how we work now. We sew the same seam types they sewed. We dress edges the same way. The materials have improved (modern marine vinyls and Stayfast tops outlast anything from forty years ago) but the methods are mostly unchanged.
The shop
Single-bay shop in Vero Beach. Two industrial sewing machines (heavy-duty Singer 111Ws and a Juki for the finer work), a long cutting table, a stack of stretching pegs for the convertible tops, a steam iron the size of a small filing cabinet. It's not glamorous; the work doesn't need glamorous.
Cars come in by appointment. We schedule one to two new jobs in per week so we have time to do them properly. No assembly line. No subcontracting.
Who we work with
About a third of what comes through is classic-car owners: Mustangs, Camaros, MGs, Porsche 911s, BMW 2002s, MGBs, Mercedes Pagodas, Alfa Spiders, the occasional pre-war custom. Another third is daily drivers needing a top replaced or a single seat re-covered. The last third is marine work: boat seats, helm cushions, bimini tops, jet ski seats. Living in coastal Florida, the boat work shows up year-round.
A few customers have come back with their second or third car since the 1990s. Some of them know the shop better than newer staff do.
Materials
We're partial to:
- Stayfast and Twillfast canvas for convertible tops. Best fade-resistance and feel of the modern options.
- Top-grain leather for re-trims when the customer wants the real thing. Primarily US tanneries.
- OEM-pattern vinyl for restorations where matching the factory look matters more than upgrading.
- Marine-grade vinyls from Spradling and Morbern for boat work. UV-rated, mildew-resistant.
We're happy to source unusual materials for restorations. Period-correct fabrics can take a few weeks to find but they make the difference on a concours-quality job.
Getting in touch
Send a few photos of the car (interior, top, seats — whatever's relevant to the job) plus a short description of what you'd like done, to [email protected]. We respond within a working day. For phone enquiries, the shop number is on Facebook and HomeAdvisor; we don't post it directly here because the spam calls are relentless.