01
Restoration
Pre-1980 classics taken back to bare metal and rebuilt panel-by-panel. Frame, body, paint, glass.
EST. 1986 — LONG BEACH, CA
SunsetSteel.Soul.
Restoration, customization and honest bodywork on classics, foreign and domestic — built one panel at a time on the California coast.
- Frame-off restoration
- Custom paint & airbrush
- Collision & insurance
- Foreign + domestic
BY THE NUMBERS
39
Years on the coast
1,200+
Cars restored
12
Master bodymen
100%
Lifetime guarantee
WHAT WE DO
Bodywork born of asphalt and ocean air.
From bare-metal restorations to candy-flake customs, our shop has been the quiet hand behind some of Southern California's most-photographed cars. We work slow, we work right.
02
Customization
Custom paint, airbrush, choptops, lowering, body mods. Build the car that lives in your head.
03
Collision & Bodywork
Daily-driver dent repair, panel replacement, full insurance work — for any year, foreign or domestic.
RECENT WORK
Coast-built and camera-ready.
A rolling portfolio of cars that left our bay in the last twelve months — every one of them documented from bare metal to final clearcoat.
Frame-off restoration
1965 Mustang Fastback
Color-change repaint
1957 Bel Air
Custom lowrider build
1972 Impala
Period-correct rebuild
1969 Camaro Z/28
JDM full restoration
1972 Datsun 240Z
Coastal custom
1976 Ford Bronco
1986
SINCE
THE SHOP
Three generations. One garage. One coast.
ChopTopShop has been chopping, leading, and clear-coating cars from the same Long Beach lot since 1986 — first under Frank Cardenas, now under his grandson Mateo. We learned this trade on '60s steel and we still treat every panel like it has somewhere to go.
We don't take more cars than we can finish. We don't outsource the parts that matter. And we don't hand a car back until it's right.
Long Beach, CA
Family-owned since 1986
ASE certified
WHAT THEY SAY
"They had my dad's '67 Chevelle for fourteen months. They sent me weekly photos. When I rolled it out of the bay it looked better than the day he bought it. ChopTop is the only shop I'll ever take a car to."
Lena Ortega
1967 Chevelle SS — Customer since 2021
READY WHEN YOU ARE
Bring us a car. Leave with a story.
Free estimates. No-obligation walkthroughs. Most quotes returned within 48 hours.
Start your build