There are lots of great things about having a soft top, like open air driving and the cool factor. But there is also a ton of downside like noise, not exactly air or water tight, and making it hard to have a roof rack solution. I have wanted a roof rack since the day I bought the truck so that I can carry surf boards, kayaks, skis and snowboards, and possibly a roof top tent for overlanding. But there are very few options on how to get a roof rack on a Defender 90 soft top. Safety Devices made a rack for soft top and hard top Defenders but they long stopped making the soft top version.
I could go with a fully custom unit but then I am paying to have someone figure it out. I could cut into the soft top to attach a traditional roof rack to the safari cage but that seems like the cheap solution. I wanted a rack that fit with the spirit of the Defender, did not impact the soft top functionality, but was also very functional. Luckily I found Chase Chop Shop & Urban Offroad who has already designed and built many Defender 90 soft top roof racks with a unique mounting solution using double ladders in the back and cross bars that mount to the external roll cage over the front doors. This design mimics the original Safety Devices version but uses better materials and some design tweaks. He makes a basket version of the roof rack which looks more traditional, but he also makes a flat roof rack which I think is more functional. With a basket the side bars tend to get in the way of mounting ski racks, surf boards, or roof top tents as you either need to mount inside the basket (which some things don't fit) or on top of the basket (which makes the truck extra tall). With a flat roof rack you can mount anything on the deck of the rack, thus minimizing the height while maximizing the versatility. The double ladder in the back also gives great access to the roof rack.
Because my truck is not perfectly square (most are not) I asked Derek @ Chase Chop Shop to keep the roof rack unfinished so that if I needed to grind, bend, or cut anything to get a good fit I can simply powder coat after the mods. I also wanted a walkable floor so Derek is welding on a metal floor with perforated holes. To give more lashing points he also built into the design some tie down points in the mid-section. So basically I was able to use Derek’s design but then customize it to my needs.
After a few weeks the rack arrived and we did a test fitting. It fit well but we needed to redo one of the brackets as it came damaged from shipping. Then it was off to the powder coater where we did a black 60% gloss to match the Defender’s external roll cage finish. Then it was time for the final finish which was easy at this point. I think this fits the original design of the truck while being highly functional. Next up is to mount 4 Hella off-road lights on the external roll cage just below the roof rack platform.