Cost: £16.99 for 500ml
Date of Review: 6th April 2026
The Sales Pitch from Shelby:
What Sets It Apart
- Specially formulated to clean both fabric and vinyl convertible tops
- Effectively removes dirt, grime, bird droppings, and other contaminants
- Prepares surfaces for protection treatments, extending the life of your convertible top – such as Shelby’s Convertible Reproofer
- Easy to apply, delivering professional-quality cleaning with minimal effort
Shelby’s Convertible Cleaner is the ultimate solution for keeping your convertible top looking fresh and pristine. Specially formulated to clean and restore both fabric and vinyl convertible roofs, this powerful cleaner effectively removes dirt, grime, bird droppings, and other contaminants without damaging or fading the material. The gentle yet effective formula helps preserve the look and feel of your convertible top, ensuring it stays looking new for longer.
Designed to be tough on stains yet gentle on fabrics, Shelby’s Convertible Cleaner is safe for use on all convertible roof types, providing a deep clean that rejuvenates the material without compromising its integrity. Easy to apply and quick to use, it also prepares the surface for further protection treatments, keeping your roof shielded from environmental elements. For a clean, well-maintained convertible top, Shelby’s Convertible Cleaner is the go-to product for effortless care.
Source: Convertible Cleaner – CSL Shelby
What You Get:
A 500ml bottle of product with no spray nozzle. This is ‘cleaner’ and not the full convertible fabric treatment and restoration.
Product Description:
A ‘cleaner’ product designed for convertible tops and outer fabrics. Supplied without the Spray so I had to attach one. As simple spray on and wipe clean process.
Instructions:
- Simply spray on and brush into the fabric with no rinsing required
- Remove any liquid residue with a clean dry microfibre
- Repeat if necessary
These instructions are worse than vague. Do you apply this product to a dry fabric or wet? Do you apply libraly or sparingly? What sort of brush? What sort of microfibre cloth, short or long nap? Can you rinse and then continue cleaning again? Lots of questions with no answers that I can see. I’m left to guess what is good or bad practice, if I get poor results then perhaps guidance would have better on the bottle.
Testing Environment:
A warm day with sunny spells.
This car’s roof has never been cleaned since I have had it. for at least a good six years. Canvas roofs on a convertible are fine, but on a small car with the cloth seems very odd, perhaps costing more than paint at the same time I would imagine.
these photos are the before where you can see all sorts of moss and things growing on the fabric.
Application:
I found a softish brush to work into the cloth roof which should be too hard as I didn’t want to damage the fibres. This was tyre brush with softish bristles. On an expensive soft top for a classic car I would be reluctant to want to scrub anything with a brush. Clearer instructions or some sort of guidance would have been nice.
Spray the liquid onto the roof and there is little to no smell of chemicals. The spray I chose for the job was a foaming type rather than a misting type. The instructions don’t tell you the type of spray or even the type of brush you should use, so I had a best guestimate.
I sprayed the roof and worked into the cloth with the brush in small sections a quarter of the roof at a time. The fabric did need to be wet or covered with the product to get it to start working. The sales pitch says “Easy to apply and quick to use”, that’s up for some discussion from my experience so far, perhaps it gets easier next time I use it?
After a few minutes of spreading the product around and I needed to add more as I couldn’t get a decent clean going on. The product was needing constant replenishment after removing excess liquid when the working area got slimy and dirty, then have another go again at working the cleaner into the fabric.
Removing:
Once I got to the point where the slimy gunge and dirt had worked its way to the surface, I used a generic white cloth to wipe the residue away, this turned out to be a mistake as it left some white fluff on the fabric. I promptly swapped over to a range of short pile microfibres and started to lift the greenish/yellow slime and grime away from the roof’s fabric which was much more efficient.
Continuing to work away at the section until fairly clean on the cloths I could work around the rest of the roof. The amount of grime coming out was quite revolting to be honest.
I used seven or eight clothes in total to get the roof to this level of clean, which isn’t fully clean.
The roof had to have about four repeat process and I used about three quarters of the bottle or just under four hundred millilitres. The eventual end result (when I eventually stopped) was a massive improvement. I could have kept going as the cloths were just constantly coming off the roof dirty. I could easily have used the entire bottle on just this little smart car’s roof, which isn’t that economical.
Results:
Pretty impressive for a clean with just a scrub and wipe away process.
After the roof was cleaned to a level which was pretty good, I did get the jet wash up for gentle rinse of the roof. The water was running off filthy and needed a little scrub to remove the most stubborn of grime where the cloths didn’t lift it all away at the time.
The roof did dry a little patchy, but it has improved over a few weeks where it has evened out. To achieve an even clean and not patchy the roof would need to be scrubbed until the cloths lifted no more dirt. My cleaning time of around ninety minutes I had enough and wished the process was quicker and easier.
Rating: 6 out of 10
This has to be applied and brushed into the fabric and wiped away with cloths and a slow clumsy process. The instructions don’t say if the roof is to be wet or dry. The instructions say “Remove any liquid residue with a clean dry microfibre” which does suggest the fabric needs to be dry for application.
Ease of use – 5 out of 10
Finish – 8 out of 10
Conclusion:
The process could be a lot slicker if the product was applied, brushed in and rinsed away, repeat. I found that the filthy areas were sometimes being rubbed over to the cleaner parts of the roof. This meant that I had to go back over the bits I had just cleaned. Unavoidable and understandable, but frustrating regardless. This product needed a bit of time to get any sort of respectable result and a good supply of microfibre cloths.
The product did clean the roof and was a massive improvement, but the process was clumsy and hard work on a dirty material covered roof. How this would work on a top quality soft top I’m not so sure. But, if the roof was fairly clean and then a spray, gentle scrub and wipe away I guess would be enough.
Does this cleaner remove any existing protection on the fabric or soft top, say if you clean a small patch, does it look out of place then force you to need a full clean to blend it back in? I can’t say with any certainty that would be the case or how this would clean on full soft top roof.
The sheer amount of product I used made this a fairly expensive clean in my case for such a small roof. Perhaps that’s my own fault for letting the roof get that dirty in the first place. Maintenance cleans should be much more economical and quicker once at a certain level of cleanliness. Again an unknown at this point in time.
The roof did come up cleaner without a doubt. But, this is only a cleaner and doesn’t claim to be anything more, in the overall process for looking after a soft top. The sales pitch says “it also prepares the surface for further protection treatments”. With that statement very much in mind, further costs should be taken into account to get a full treatment for your fabric soft top. If that’s the case then it might work out cheaper to get an all inclusive kit containing a brush, cloths and the various treatment products for each stage of cleaning the soft fabric roofs.
Would I recommend it? Yes, but only as a cleaner.
Would I buy it again? No. I would want a full package to restore and treat.