Wow I have to admit, as much as I have l learned about ThirdGens in the 4 years that I have been doing this ground up restoration, I am embarrassed that I don't yet know this answer.

I have an 87 IROC convertible and other than new seat upholstery the last thing to do is a new top. Saved this for last. A few months ago I had an 88 RS convertible and I put a new top on it and sold it. I bought the top from Convertibletopguys.com. They personally told me AND their website states that Haartz Pinpoint Vinyl was the factory OEM material and that canvas is an upgrade but is not technically correct to what these cars originally came with. So I bought that and installed it and it wasn't that great. Looked cheap. I had a hard time believing THAT was what GM put on these cars. But I figured they knew what they were talking about.

Now its time to finish my all original restoration on my 87 IROC and I'm ready to order the new top and I just couldn't bear the thought of that awful Vinyl so I started to consider doing it in canvas instead, even tho that is supposedly incorrect. So I did a Google and landed on this other suppliers page, TopsOnline.com, now they state that canvas was the original material!!!

So who has a car that they know for 100% sure still has the original top on it? What material were these tops? I am absolutely dumbfounded that one of these two suppliers has this wrong. The correct answer cant be a mystery.

 

Mine was vinyl according to the RPO.

 

I have an original numbers matching '87 IROC convertible and it is definitely CANVAS, just like the Corvette's had.


EDIT: There are at least 3 different size of tops, so you will probably need to measure your back plastic window and I believe 2 other measurements to get the correct '87 top. Just FYI.

 

What RPO decoder did you use that told you it was vinyl?

 

Compnine option 41T

 

Unfortunately you can't trust Compnine's RPO descriptions

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/hist...ml#post5002200

As you can see by one list of GM RPO codes, 41T means either a black top, or a black vinyl top.

http://www.rpocodes.com/GM-RPO-codes...0through4.html

To add, the 91 next to the 41T indicates that its an RPO from 1991, as I recall.

As far as I am aware, from the factory, they are all a canvas top. Looking at the 1992 Camaro brochure (https://www.thirdgen.org/1992_camaro_order_brochure/) you'll notice that it doesn't list an option for convertible top material. Also, for the 1989 order sheet (https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/conv...-you-want.html) the top material is listed as Haartz Cambria, which is a cloth material.

 

I would have thought they were all canvas but it's GM. Who knows how cheap they got by the end. Either way mine isn't original.

 

I am the third owner of my Red 88 IROC Convertible ( bought it from one of my brother eleven years ago and it still had the original canvas top back then. The IROC is still a daily driver and with all the baking sun, hail, ice and snow I have since replaced it with a a Topsonline canvas top with a real glass window and that was five years ago. Still looks great and has survived all the weather elements where as the plastic window would not have done well at all under those conditions, the car does live outside

 

Based on all the replies here and with my discussion with the owner of TopsOnline.com plus the fact that my car had canvas on it when I acquired it (which I thought was not original but now think it might have been) I am 99% sure it was canvas. The guys at ConvertibleTopGuys.com have it wrong on their website. I am very relieved. I put a vinyl top on my 88 RS that I sold and it just didn't look great. I am glad to know my 87 IROC will be canvas. I came soooo close to just ordering another vinyl top and then I hesitated and decided to ask about it. Whew! This time I'm ordering from TopsOnline.com

 

Hello......I can tell you it was canvas 100%. Why you ask? Because I worked on the line in Livonia, MI and have the actual material in black and tan in my basement, because when the mounted the canvas to frame, we cut out the canvas for the rear window. So I have many rear window cut outs that I use on my workbench. We just threw away that window cut out and I saved them.
SO ITS CANVAS!!

 

Yep, I think we can conclusively close this thread now. It was certainly canvas. Whew, I damn near bought a vinyl top based on what it said on the The convertible top guys website. That web page is DEAD WRONG!!! Buy from somebody else.

 

Mine was a canvas but now replaced with a canvas and glass window from Tops Online. Im more than satisfied with it. They do make different size ones for our 3gens, just measure the top window to window they will point you in the right direction

 

theBMan, thanks for chiming in... been a while...