Built in America. Engineered for the long haul.
Buffalo Tarp Company designs, machines, and assembles every component of its tarp systems in Grove City, Ohio. Backed by decades of field experience and a growing national dealer network, we build the systems the industry has been asking for.
Started in a diesel shop.
I grew up in a diesel repair shop. Started working on trucks on the clock at about thirteen years old. It was around that same time I learned how to weld and started fabricating. Everything I've built since has come out of that era of my life — watching, listening, and learning from my father and our employees.
Eventually I split off from my father's company to start my own shop building and restoring antique motorcycles under the name Built The Traditional Way. The name meant what it sounds like: hand-fabricated parts, correct materials, and finish work that looks factory.
Blackbird, Born Free, Yokohama.
Over the years those bikes ended up in a lot of magazines and won a lot of shows. A 1927 Model J Harley took Best Competition at Born Free 7. A 1948 Harley UL we called Blackbird — co-designed with Bobby Green — took Best in Show at Born Free 10, and afterwards was flown to Japan as a special guest at the Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show, put on by Mooneyes.
You can still find that work under @bttw on Instagram. It's a different discipline from a tarp system, but the standard is the same: if it leaves the shop with my name on it, it has to be right.
How Buffalo Tarp got started.
Years ago my father came to me about the problems he was seeing with the systems they were installing. There was room for improvement, quality seemed to be going downhill, and customer service was getting harder to come by. Parts were now being sourced overseas, and he wasn't happy about it. So Buffalo Tarp was born.
We started close to home — local customers, tight quality control, every part inspected by the people who designed it. My father (Eric Walls of ELW Co.), Kenny Wallace (ELW Co. foreman), and I have worked hand in hand over several years to figure out what works, what lasts, and how to make a system that's friendly to the installer and the driver both.
The systems are what they are because of decades of hands-on experience in the field — talking with drivers and mechanics until we landed on what we believe is the best system available.
Buffalo Tarp today.
A true family-run and operated business, today Buffalo Tarp — headed up by my daughter and I — is scaling to meet the industry's demand for a better, American-built system. From CAD and CNC machining to welding, finishing, and QC, every step happens under our roof in Grove City, Ohio — with a team that knows what these systems have to survive because we've been in the field with the drivers running them.
We work shoulder-to-shoulder with our dealers to make sure every part fits how it should, works how it should, and lasts. Dump beds change every year — we stay ahead of those changes so our dealers never have to explain a fitment problem to a customer.
We sell through an authorized dealer network on purpose. Dealers are already the shops truckers trust for install and service, and it lets us stay focused on what we do best: building the next system, better than the last one.
Buffalo.
The name isn't decorative. The long-term goal is a working bison farm here in Ohio — a small role in bringing a native species back to the land it belonged to, on ground that stays clean and feeds our family, our friends, and eventually a piece of the surrounding community.
Every system we build helps get us there. That's a good reason to make each one count.
— Justin Walls
Where the parts come from.
