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New Soft Tops for 1st Gen.

Greg72 said:
I think the single most "cool" feature of a 1st Gen soft top would be to design the bedside rails to work with the factory holes for the hardtop. This would prevent anyone from having to drill new holes for the top.

The challenge is that there are both single-wall and double-wall tops, and the holes are NOT in the same places on the bedrails... ideally the frame would have a pattern for each. Now THAT would be a slick solution, and would finally resolve one of the largest concerns most people have with installing a soft top in the first place.

I'd imagine that the "style" would be another factor. I'd like a top where the sides could somehow be either unzipped or folded up underneath the top roof area for some "open sides" wheeling... it can get hot with a full soft top, so a little breeze would be nice especially while getting some relief from the direct sunlight overhead.

Tightness of the top is another huge factor. There is nothing worse than a top that makes a ton of noise on the highway because the wind is making it flap all around. If there was a way to add a tensioning system to keep it tight (even after the material relaxed over the course of several months) that would be sweet too.

I'm sure I could come up with a lot more ideas, but those are some quick ones off the top of my head.


:usaflag:
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those are some slick ideas Greg! i think price is a big factor also. everyone wants one but it has to be at a price people are going to pay and that cant sacrifice the quality of the soft top either. maybe they could do a computer design of the top before production to give people a idea of what it would look like? thats just a thought
 
1971 GMC Jimmy said:
"At least give us a name."
I did.

SOFTOPPER.

I don't have enough posts here to include the url.
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Sounds to me like a guy buys a blazer, finds our site, pays for a membership so he has full use of it, finds someone willing to make a soft top and probably has struck a deal with said company to get his free or highly discounted IF he can get 10 people to commit to buying one, then makes a post here so he can try to make it happen for him and is very vague in the process.

I'm sure i speak for all others that have read or will read this post.
 
dfl701 said:
those are some slick ideas Greg! i think price is a big factor also. everyone wants one but it has to be at a price people are going to pay and that cant sacrifice the quality of the soft top either. maybe they could do a computer design of the top before production to give people a idea of what it would look like? thats just a thought
Click to expand...


For almost every one of these "Let's do a 1st Gen softtop buy" threads the same two things always seem to kill the idea:

1. Price - By the time the top has the features and quality everyone wants, almost everyone has been scared away by the escalating price.

2. Style - The design takes a turn in a direction that at least half the buyers don't like anymore. Some people like the looks of the BestTop design, others liked the STC one or whatever. Sometimes it's the inability to work with an existng rollcage that ruins it for buyers.


Ultimately, the people who REALLY want something nice and feature-rich will end up contracting with a boat shop to do a "one-off" creation which ends up beautiful but expensive.


:usaflag:
 
Greg72 said:
For almost every one of these "Let's do a 1st Gen softtop buy" threads the same two things always seem to kill the idea:

1. Price - By the time the top has the features and quality everyone wants, almost everyone has been scared away by the escalating price.

2. Style - The design takes a turn in a direction that at least half the buyers don't like anymore. Some people like the looks of the BestTop design, others liked the STC one or whatever. Sometimes it's the inability to work with an existng rollcage that ruins it for buyers.


Ultimately, the people who REALLY want something nice and feature-rich will end up contracting with a boat shop to do a "one-off" creation which ends up beautiful but expensive.


:usaflag:
Click to expand...


I thought about posting that exact statement, but apparently I have too many posts to be commenting in this thread and I should know better... :haha:
 
When I was looking into having them made to sell them it was a company in Co that I contacted. The owner was VERY interested in making them, but NOT from scratch. Hence the reason I needed a pattern. Which is the reason I bought a used one. Ofcourse with the down turn of the economy I was not about to go and drop a bunch of cash into a item I didn't know would sell or not.

Intrest is one thing but selling is another. Thats the reason I backed away from it. I spent enough on hardware for that venture for it to basically go anywhere. I have bow tube, mounting hardware, a bender I bought for bow tube spicifically. I'm actually now making myown but not for a "selling them" thing. I will believe this guy when I see one posted with pics for sale. hell, I might even just buy one too. No offence intended. But for now, I will continue to fab myown top.
 
4X4HIGH said:
Sounds to me like a guy buys a blazer, finds our site, pays for a membership so he has full use of it, finds someone willing to make a soft top and probably has struck a deal with said company to get his free or highly discounted IF he can get 10 people to commit to buying one, then makes a post here so he can try to make it happen for him and is very vague in the process.

If you read my first post then you should appreciate my approach. Yes I am a new owner of something you have years of experience with, and I can tell you are skeptical of my intensions. So let me introduce myself, I'm 48, married with two children, my son is in his 3rd year of college and my daughter is in high school, I am a long time dirt biker with lots of bikes, my sunday car is a C-5 convertible and I finally bought my first Jimmy.

After speaking with Larry (the owner) of Softopper he never demanded a specific order number to create this top and he was very willing and eager to get involved. I would hope that members with your stature would see the glass as half full not half empty. I believe I found the Chicken and now its time to create the omelet.
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boy, that puts my mind at ease. you have no idea how much it means to me that you're married and have a couple kids. that really tells me you're legit. :wink1:

my wife offered to make me a chicken omelet once, but there's something about putting chicken into eggs that really turns me off.... mixing any fowl w/ eggs seems gross for some reason. put some beef sausage into, tho, and i'm all about it.

ok, i'll lay off a little now. just busting yer ballz, newb.
 
Greg72 said:
For almost every one of these "Let's do a 1st Gen softtop buy" threads the same two things always seem to kill the idea:

1. Price - By the time the top has the features and quality everyone wants, almost everyone has been scared away by the escalating price.

2. Style - The design takes a turn in a direction that at least half the buyers don't like anymore. Some people like the looks of the BestTop design, others liked the STC one or whatever. Sometimes it's the inability to work with an existng rollcage that ruins it for buyers.


Ultimately, the people who REALLY want something nice and feature-rich will end up contracting with a boat shop to do a "one-off" creation which ends up beautiful but expensive.


:usaflag:
Click to expand...

ahh i completely agree with you. until the day somebody makes a product i like(if that ever happens) my plan is to have the boat shop down the road make one or if i fine a used one.
 
1971 GMC Jimmy said:
4X4HIGH said:
Sounds to me like a guy buys a blazer, finds our site, pays for a membership so he has full use of it, finds someone willing to make a soft top and probably has struck a deal with said company to get his free or highly discounted IF he can get 10 people to commit to buying one, then makes a post here so he can try to make it happen for him and is very vague in the process.

If you read my first post then you should appreciate my approach. Yes I am a new owner of something you have years of experience with, and I can tell you are skeptical of my intensions. So let me introduce myself, I'm 48, married with two children, my son is in his 3rd year of college and my daughter is in high school, I am a long time dirt biker with lots of bikes, my sunday car is a C-5 convertible and I finally bought my first Jimmy.

After speaking with Larry (the owner) of Softopper he never demanded a specific order number to create this top and he was very willing and eager to get involved. I would hope that members with your stature would see the glass as half full not half empty. I believe I found the Chicken and now its time to create the omelet.
Click to expand...

I have read this thread entirely. You are the one who gave a number of 10 tops so i had to only assume that was a requirement of this Softopper company.

Let me be the first to say welcome to this site, the best damn 4x4 site on the net for blazers. I should also state that many people here are very skeptical of a "new guy" coming in here and making a post as such (being very vague) and then not being very helpful when people asked who the company was. People have been looking for soft tops ever since STC tops went under years ago. There is a company right now that has been claiming to be making and releasing tops soon but nothing has ever come of it yet (that i know of) i'm on the mailing list and haven't heard anything in a VERY long time. So with that said you can quickly see why people are skeptical of such a thing.
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I would encourage you to call Larry and verify his interest. From my research STC went out of business back in 2005, Larry spoke to this STC guy and tells a story of how he made off with thousands of dollars from his suppliers of materials and how he wanted big dollars to sell his patterns but he quickly went underground and is now nowhere to be found.
The reason I waited to give the name (Softopper) was because I wanted to make sure this type of thread wasn't in violation with the forum.

What would be really great is to find someone in the Boulder area to bring there rig in and let Larry check it out. I live in Lakewood California and I don't have the resources to drive my Jimmy to Boulder Co.
 
4X4HIGH said:
...being very vague....
Click to expand...

At least, he didn't trigger the You-Can't-Sell-In-The-Garage Police...:D


But I believe there's a commercially available softtop when I see it - on a truck different than the recycled STC/CanBack pics.
 
1971 GMC Jimmy said:
Is there a better place for this thread on this forum?
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Probably would have been better suited for the lounge. The garage is for tech and the lounge is for chit chat. Until there is proven reality in these tops it is all nothing more than chit chat.
 
Pardon me as I read the description for the lounge as "off topic". Do you think it should be moved? And Who has to power to do that?
 
I'll subscribe just in case this goes somewhere as well as express my interest.

But I've seen way to many threads where good intentioned people get everyone excited about finally being able to buy a new soft-top from a startup manufacturer only to have the project die a few months later.

Nothing personal, but people have been burned by this kinda thing before. If it manages to get off the ground, cool!
 
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