We curbivores have a love-hate relationship with vinyl roofs – based on article comments, it seems to be mostly hate because as they invariable tear and age, water can get trapped underneath the vinyl, which can rapidly cause the metal roof underneath to deteriorate and rust away. Furthermore, the entire premise of a vinyl top is predicated on a deceit: To make a fixed roof car look like something it is not – a convertible. Still, no matter how you feel about them, it is hard to imagine the Brougham Epoch playing out without its signature vinyl roof.
Vinyl tops burst onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere in the mid-’60s before peaking in popularity in the 1970s, only fade away again in the ’80s and ’90s. So where exactly did they come from?
1940’s and 1950’s – Several False Starts
1949 Kaiser Virginian
The original idea behind vinyl roofs was to give fixed-roof cars some of the flair and appeal of their convertible counterparts – it was never about function. The earliest modern (post-war) example of this was the 1949 Kaiser Virginian, a fixed-roof version of the Kaiser Manhattan four-door convertible. At first glance, the Virginian really does look like the Manhattan convertible – the only real tell that that it is not a convertible is the large three-piece glass rear window. Technically, the Virginian’s roof was covered not with vinyl, but rather with nylon fabric (the same material as the convertible), but this is close enough that most consider it to be the first appearance of the modern vinyl roof.
1951 Ford Crestliner
There were several other failed attempts to make vinyl roofs a “thing” before the concept finally took hold in the 1960s. In 1950, the Ford lineup was lacking a two-door hardtop model that both GM and Chrysler were then offering. In an effort to sprinkle some convertible excitement on their fixed-roof models, Ford made a vinyl roof available on the Ford Crestliner, Mercury Monterey, and Lincoln Lido models starting in 1950. Sales were sluggish, and Ford discontinued the vinyl roof models after 1951, the same year Ford introduced their own hardtop models.
1951 Kaiser Golden Dragon Vinyl Roof
Kaiser, like all the independent automakers, had to find niches in order to avoid potentially deadly direct competition with the Big 3 automakers. One angle that Kaiser took was appealing to style-conscious buyers with their upgraded interior materials and daring exterior styling. In 1951, Kaiser released their Dragon model which featured an alligator skin patterned interior and vinyl roof. The Kaiser Dragons are actually fascinating cars that I have covered in more depth here.
1953 Kaiser Dragon Bambu Roof
The Dragon took a break in 1952, but came back in 1953 for one final year with an even wilder “Bambu” roof.
1956 Cadillac Eldorado Seville
Things would actually go quiet on the vinyl roof front for the next several years, with no American automakers offering vinyl tops after the 1953 Kaiser Dragon until 1956. Next up with a vinyl top would be Cadillac, who in 1956 released the Cadillac Eldorado Seville with a “Vicodec” top. Despite the fancy name, Vicodec was just diamond point convertible fabric, applied over the steel roof with some thin padding to give the hardtop Eldorado the appearance of the convertible model. The Eldorado Seville (and its vinyl roof) continued to be produced until 1960, never selling in significant numbers. Except for the Fleetwood 75 limo, the vinyl roof would then take a brief hiatus at Cadillac (and every other automaker).
Honorable Mention – 1959 Imperial Silvercrest Landau Roof and 1959 Desoto Adventurer Sportsman Hardtop
1959 Imperial Crown Silvercrest Landau Roof
Some sources include 1959 Imperial and 1959 Desoto Adventurer Sportsman Hardtop on the list of early vinyl tops. In actuality, this was a textured black paint designed to look like leather, on a landau top on the Imperial, and on the entire roof in the case of the Desoto. The Imperial also represents one of the earliest modern appearances of a landau roof, a style that would become much more popular in the ’70s and ’80s, as we shall see. While not actually made of vinyl, the intent was the same (to simulate leather), so it is worth including in this list.
1962 Ford Falcon and Thunderbird
All of these previously aborted attempts at vinyl tops were niche vehicles with limited appeal. 1962 would mark the next attempt to popularize vinyl roofs, and this time they stuck. While GM equipped a few low-volume specialty models with vinyl roofs starting in 1962 (like the Buick Wildcat and Oldsmobile F-85 Cutlass), it was Ford that brought vinyl tops to the masses.
1962 Ford Falcon Futura
In 1962, Ford released two vehicles with an optional vinyl roof: The Falcon Futura, and the Thunderbird Landau. And while I’m sure a few people might have sprung for a tarted-up Falcon, the real star of the show in 1962 was the T-Bird.
1962 Ford Thunderbird Landau
The Thunderbird Landau featured a deeply grained vinyl (for a more leather-like appearance) with felt padding underneath to complete the convertible effect. And if that weren’t enough, an S-bar was placed on each side to complete the look. To me, the S-bars are a bit much – sort of like putting ice cream on your cake, but it is definitely a memorable look, one that would remain a Thunderbird signature until 1973.
While production data for the 1962 Thunderbird Landau is not available, in 1963, the following year, 25% of fixed-roof Thunderbirds were sold with a vinyl roof. That number would quickly rise to more than half by 1966, and other manufacturers were quick to take notice. Vinyl quickly spread like an earworm.
An Emerging Trend
Chrysler would enter the vinyl top fray in 1963 with a new range-topping New Yorker Salon model with a “canopy” partial vinyl top, a look that would soon spread across the Chrysler lineup.
1963 Chrysler Turbine Car
And of course, Chrysler’s Turbine Car, unveiled in 1963, was also festooned with the newly fashionable vinyl roof.
1964 Buick Skylark “Halo” vinyl roof
Buick also started offering nylon fabric tops Skylark in 1963. The 1964 “halo” style roof is particularly handsome, in my opinion, especially in the color scheme in the brochure.
Surprisingly, luxury makers were somewhat slow to adopt the vinyl roof. Starting in 1963, Cadillac once again started offering vinyl roofs, although it was on a very limited basis (it was not mentioned in any of the brochures or pricelists). The Vinyl top would become a regular production option for the Series 62 starting in 1964. Imperial would start offering vinyl roofs in 1964, while Lincoln would not besmirch its Continental with a vinyl roof until 1965.
1964 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk
By 1964, Ford was all in on vinyl tops, with them being available almost their entire product line: The option was available on the Falcon, Fairlane, Galaxie, Thunderbird, and even the 1964 ½ Mustang. Even Studebaker was offering a half-vinyl roof in 1964. GM was still limiting vinyl tops to specialty models, but that would soon change.
1965 Chevrolet Caprice
By 1965, every Big-3 brand was offering at least one model with a vinyl roof option, with one lone, notable holdout: Chevrolet. Chevy wouldn’t offer their first vinyl roof until midway through the 1965 model year, as an option on the Impala SS and new Caprice models.
The (presumably vinyl-covered) floodgates had been opened. In four short model years, vinyl tops had gone from curiosity to near-ubiquity.
Having been thus commoditized, what new ways would manufacturers look to distinguish their vinyl roof offerings in an increasingly crowded vinyl roof marketplace? Different colors, textures, patterns, and shapes? Yes, yes, yes, and hell yes! Click here for part two as vinyl tops get pushed to excess and eventually fall out of favor.
Related Reading
Vintage Ad: 1951 Ford Crestliner – If You Don’t Have A Hardtop, Fake It
Prior to 1962 Vinyl Roofs were called “Vicodec”. But I thought it was Cadillac which introduced the first Vinyl Roof in 1956 on their Eldorado Seville, seeing one in the Far East in 1958. Unfortunately the climate in the Far East didn’t make the Vicodec last long…
“Ask you doctor if Vicodec might be right for managing your moderate to severe back pain.”
It’s a weird name all right.
Hey, that could be a future topic, “Weird names for ordinary automotive features.”
I have divided feelings on them. My 1000 buck Holden Statesman had one, and on peeling it back my worst suspicions were confirmed. Terminal rust.
With that in mind, when I bought my ’69 Skylark I was paranoid about such rust, so I went over it carefully. To the point where I missed the rust around the windscreen! Fast forward to 2019, and I had to address the rust.
To my relief, the roof & gutters were fine. The rust was around the front & rear screens, a common area in the A bodies. I can’t blame the vinyl roof for any of the rust.
I like the look- white roof over red with a white interior. Bottom line: it’s not a deal breaker for me.
Before cars had steel bodies, they were built of fabric, on a wood frame. After steel coachwork became the norm, some cars continued to us fabric ( vinyl or imitation leather? ) over a wooden frame for the roof.. In the early 50’s two of my aunts ran RMA/RME Rileys, which had black “leatherette” roofs. Even my first car, a ’46 Ford Anglia, had an inset wood-framed fabric roof panel.
British Ford continued to build that generation of Anglia until 1953 and then as the decontented Popular until 1959, with the fixed fabric insert to the very end. Probably the last car anywhere to have one, and I suspect anywhere else in Europe except Britain the Popular at the very least would’ve gotten a roll-back sunroof to convert an embarrassingly dated feature into a selling point at no expense to the company.
I’ve liked the look of a vinyl roof on many cars of that era, but somehow keep forgetting that the era extends back as far into the 50’s as it does… even though I’m well aware of the Ford Crestliner, Lincoln Lido, and the bold K-F offerings. I especially like the aesthetics of the 1964 Stude Hawk’s vinyl option.
One of my first cars, a 1979 Chevy Malibu Landau, was good ‘n’ crunchy™ under its white vinyl half-roof by its 15th birthday, having trapped water around the back window and lower seams. One would think that if you made a concentrated effort to prep and protect the areas under the vinyl roof, and kept the car garaged when not in use, that you might be able to live with a roof covering and not turn all the metal into crumbling rust chips… I’ve never pulled a factory installed vinyl roof off a car where they made any effort at all to protect anything that was covered by said vinyl… I think that was half the point of installing vinyl roof (at least in the 1970’s)- so makers didn’t have to expend labor finishing seams, or even really painting the roof.
Brooks Stevens pushed for the Hawk vinyl top from the first 1962 model but didn’t get the production go-ahead until the ’64.
Gran Turismo Hawks had a crease in the roof as a result of the 1962 Brooks Stevens restyle. This is where the vinyl roof begins.
> so makers didn’t have to expend labor finishing seams, or even really painting the roof
I’ve heard that the Jaguar XJC had a vinyl roof in order to simplify preparation – some people have restored them without the vinyl but it takes a lot of bodywork to get the roof looking right.
I really like that “widow’s peak” rear window on the Kaiser, particularly with the Bambu roof. I’ve never seen that before – such a quintessential 50’s look!
I don’t think the vinyl roof (and especially the Thunderbird Landau) can be understood without going back to the 20s. The Ford Model A Sports Coupe was the most expensive coupe, and was a standard 5 window coupe with the quarter windows filled in and covered with fabric, and then non-functional landau irons just for fun. It was stylish at the time, and a look Ford could charge extra for. I don’t doubt that it copied a look from more expensive cars of the time, and I am sure there were plenty of others that did something similar.
As for Cadillac, I believe that the vinyl roof was an option on the Fleetwood Sixty Special sedan starting in 1963. The 63 or 64 brochures don’t mention it or feature it, but it was there.
Also, the Lincoln Cosmopolitan Capri should be mentioned. The Cosmopolitan was an entirely different body from the standard Lincoln (twinned with Mercury). The Capri came out along with the Monterey, Lido and Crestliner in 1950 and may havve been the most attractive of all of them, with the bright metal thin pillars in the greenhouse that worked pretty well with the fabric/vinyl roof.
You’re slightly off on that re: Model “A” Sport Coupe. In 1928/29 there was, I think, a “Deluxe” coupe fitting your description more closely.
The Sport Coupe in your illustration had an entirely cloth/wood top with ornamental Landau bars. A bit of a halfway measure in that It looked like a convertible but the top didn’t actually retract and it had full doors with roll-up glass.
The Sport Coupe continued throughout the run but in 1930 Ford came out with the “Cabriolet” which had a functional top and special roll up windows.
This is the one that had a steel roof structure with padded artificial leather applied to its rear portions, the five window “Special Coupe”.
That looks quite special.
The ersatz vinyl roof fad really seemed to get its start in 1962-64 with GM’s full-size cars. Big Pontiac hardtops, in particular, had what was a most notable crease above the rear window which was, apparently, supposed to mimic a convertible bow. The full-size Chevrolet’s roof crease was much more subdued. It was odd since sharing a roof was one of the hallmarks of GM divisions’ commonality to keep costs down but the convertible bow ‘look’ varied among the divisions. While the vinyl roof covering was, itself, still in its infancy, the start was the creased roof of a differrent color (even if it wasn’t vinyl).
Ford had a similar crease on their ’63-’64 Sportsroof cars. I can think of no other reason for the crease other than to make the roof look more like a convertible. It’s a fascinating style touch that’s rarely noticed or mentioned, but once seen, it’s hard not to look for on those cars.
But I dare say that the real explosion came with the Mustang and the popularity of that car’s convertible version. Don’t feel like dealing with the detriments of a Mustang convertible but still want the appearance? No problem, Ford has a Mustang hardtop with a vinyl roof that looks just like it.
Wow, I’ve never seen a “halo” style roof, like on that Buick. That’s a great look… but it almost seems like it was DESIGNED to rust out the backlight in a few years.
The only modern aftermarket roof I’ve seen that looks great was one on a modern Challenger… the installer had used an older-style thinner patterned vinyl with no padding underneath. Strong 60s vibes as opposed to Brougham.
Lack of padding is key to them looking good as well as having a prominent shelf for the top to terminate on the C pillar which the Challenger has. Most of the “modern” vinyl top conversions not only have padding they’re used on cars where the pillars are flush with the quarter panels, making the car look like it has a bad perm
The “halo” on the Skylark wasn’t necessarily vinyl. My ’65 is a factory two-tone with a steel “halo”; cars with vinyl tops used a number instead of a letter on the body tag for the upper color.
All GM A-Bodies of this vintage seem to have a propensity to rust around the backlight, so I don’t know if the trim made things worse.
Very informative article Tom. The “halo” vinyl top always intrigued me because the vinyl did not go to the roof drip rails or the top of the windshield but did completely encircle the rear window. An excellent example is shown in your first photo for this article as well as the 1964 Buick Skylark. The 1970 and 1971 Cutlass Supreme had the halo vinyl top but the 1972 model did not have it. It was probably just a slightly different look to differentiate the 1972 model from the 1971 model.
Vinyl roofs go back a lot further than the Kaiser. Back to the 1920s. http://www.classiccarstodayonline.com/2020/09/19/vinyl-roof-coverings-were-created-to-be-retro-in-1928-now-the-on-and-off-fad-is-making-a-comeback/
Interesting how vinyl roofs didn’t really take off for more than 10 years after the hardtop emerged since both features seem intended to mimic convertibles. I would argue the squared-off body styles of the mid-60s wear these features much better than the rounder 50s models did. With a vinyl top, the Kaiser looks like a turtle.
My first car was a 1963 Ford 2 dr sedan a very light blue, powder puff or French blue? It had a fake vinyl roof. Thick textured black paint? Always wondered what they were thinking or drinking when that idea came up. I used black shoe polish to keep it shiny.
My 74 Dart Sport came with a vinyl roof new, that we didn’t want. We were upsold no the roof, when they claimed they had missed checking that box on this car that was already in stock. Unfortunately they had no other cars in stock (yeah right), and we had to take that very one.
Although hadn’t wanted it, the roof looked OK, but being a beige colour, made it hard to keep clean.
For some unknown reason that escapes me, my 81 Bel Air had a vinyl roof as well. It complemented the body colour nicely, but I didn’t keep the car long enough to see how it held up.
Within trade circles, the vinyl roof became known as a “hat.” Nice article on the history of these. Note that cars were made during the era of the vinyl roof such that the car adapted well to having one aa sometimes looked awfully plain without it.
One manufacturer not mentioned is Packard.
In 1952 to 54 Packard had an arrangement with the Derham Body Co to install padded imitation leather roof treatments added to the Patrician sedans, with or without a tiny oval rear window. This was a cataloged item. I’m including a photo of the Packard Derham ad.
There were also several [up to 4] Patricians cut & lengthened 22 inches by Henney, all featured the padded roof and small oval window. These were said to be designed and penned by Ray Dietrich. The 1953-54 Henney-Packard 7-passenger limousines were also available with the Derham style roof and rear window.
In 1956 Packard introduced the Caribbean 2-door hardtop. All were covered in the same padded Vicodec material used on the Eldorado Seville. Both Packard and Cadillac had problems with the material rapidly deteriorating, and as the padding held water like a sponge, these cars developed serious roof rust issues. I have vivid memories of a friend buying a Caribbean hardtop, and on removing the padded roof materials, he discovered the entire roof required replacement. On removing the headliner, and sitting in the car in the bright sunlite, it looked like a starry night!
Ah, funny memory of Vinyl top times. I was very young in the ’70s but distinctly remember visiting 6 Flags / Great Adventure in NJ shortly after it opened. They had a self-guided auto Safari tour with exotic animals. There was a big note of caution at the entrance that vinyl roofs were susceptible to damage !
Once again, I was very young at the time. I didn’t catch on to the fact that the vinyl top was supposed to emulate a convertible. To me it merely seemed like a “luxury” feature and there was a perception that the treatment had a rain/road noise deadening effect.
My parents, who were born in the late 1920s and remembered the pre-war cars felt like the ones from the 70s were like riding under a tin shed by comparison. One of the first things I did when Dad entrusted me with our well worn strippo ’77 Aspen was to loosen the perforated particle board head liner and stuff a bunch of pink fiberglass insulation between it and the metal roof.
Priorities ! Of course I also had to put chicken wire in the spots behind the rusted out rear wheel wells to keep things from falling out of the gaping holes in the trunk!
I wonder if the customisers’ Carson Top was related to vinyl roofs? although it started earlier.
https://allstarupholsterymn.com/carson-tops/
Wasn’t the Carson Top the first introduction of what would be later be called a Chopped Top…
As I understand it they’re two separate things – a chopped roof has shorter pillars but the remainder is welded back in place. A Carson top, from the description at the link, is a completely separate structure and can be removed.
Even Modern Chop Tops differ somewhat than those fabricated 20 or 30 years ago. The Carson Top was in ~1935 and probably didn’t include Aluminium in it’s construction. Aluminium fabrication of Chop Tops didn’t begin until 1965…
Secundius,
I’ve worked on 2 early Carson top equipped cars, both pre-ww2 open cars. I don’t know if this is typical, but both were constructed using a wooden framework with metal corner brackets. The cross ribs were also wood. The whole thing was covered with chicken wire stapled to the outside portions, then covered with cotton cloth, and finally covered in a water-resistant fabric. Both tops were very heavy and required 2 people to remove and replace the top. They were not intended to be quickly removed, and I believe they were actually not intended to be removed.
Both of the cars I worked on had been built in southern California, where rain was not a considering factor.
Vinyl tops work very well on a lot of 60s designs for me, I don’t particularly find them deceitful in trying to look like a convertible with a top up but making the “top up” convertible look actually have the attractive lines of a fixed roof, which actual convertible tops rarely pull off. But really I like how they break up the lines of the cars, carrying on the same idea of 50s two tone paint schemes but with something a little more tactile and contrasting than simply using a different gloss paint color on the roof.
Probably getting ahead of the series but had vinyl top executions stayed frozen in time, where they were simply tightly wrapped around the steel roofs without thick padding, coach lamps and various detail accessories as seen in the 70s 80s and 90s (both factory and dealer conversions) the vinyl top wouldn’t be so polarizing as it is today. Rust is the worst aspect about them but the reality is if you find a car with rot under the vinyl top it’s probably got a whole lot more elsewhere unrelated to it.
The next step after this article is the origin and history of the “Carriage roof”, which really WAS designed to look at though it were a convertible top with the silhouette of the ribs, etc. – though usually on vehicles whose backlight angle assured you there’s no possible way that convertible truly converted. 1980s Cadillacs and Lincolns seemed particularly susceptible, but I’m sure a part of this is “Wait, another accessory we can add and grab a little more profit from besides rustproofing and the ‘gold package’? Do tell!!”
Worst yet was an example of the new-for-90s Eldo/Seville with this monstrosity. The car basically designed to get away from this sort of thing. It’s important that you never saw this on S-Classes, 7-Series and XJ’s (or LS400s and Q45s – they knew which clique they wanted to associate with).
Wait until living in Detroit area…
I saw Lexus LS, Lincoln MKS, MKZ, Dodge Neon with vinyl roofs and those combinations just don’t make sense at all. Eventually the vinyl roof went away with the entire American sedan segment.
My neighbor has a W220 S-Class with tacky aftermarket side portholes, it looks awful. In the areas where automobile industry flourishes, the aftermarket applications are so rich and so much of them are almost impossible to think of.
I’m tempted to have white wall tires on my Miata though….
Derham Body Co. in Rosemont, PA was one of the few pre-war Classic Era coach-builders still offering custom work in the postwar years. Their stock-and-trade was installing the padded formal tops to production luxury sedans as well as partition windows and other custom luxury features. Since the padded leather formal top was a styling element of from the Classic Era and recollection of such by the general public was still strong, Derham applied them to dozens of cars.
I have owned my ’66 Mustang for years and I still have people I know in this small town ask me why I never put the top down. My black vinyl top appears to be original but previous owners must have kept it in a garage or carport and done due maintenance. It still looks very good. I seldom wash the top when I clean the car due to rust worries. A quick swipe with damp and dry towels is sufficient followed with treatment. I think it really sets the red paint off. Of course, red and black is my favorite auto color combination. My Malibu has no vinyl top but the red interior and factory pinstripe set off the black paint nicely. At least that’s how I see it.
I too love a red car with a black vinyl top; especially on a pony car from the 60’s like yours. My father had a vinyl-top car that I would wash for him; like you, I would simply use damp towels (with spot cleaning of sap or bird droppings) and hit it with Armour-All after that. I don’t know whether it made a difference, but that top looked good for years.
Maybe a white vinyl roof provides insulating value against heat and sun?
Here is my Aunt Zona and her new ’30 or ’31 Model A Sport Coupe. After this, she and her future husband Uncle Bud always drove Oldsmobiles
It is quite a lovely photo. And one has to wonder what your aunt was thinking about the car at the time. It took a much greater effort to have a photo taken in those days than now ( perhaps, 100 times of the effort. ) and it must have been taken seriously to make this picture happen.
( From an older movie, I won’t say the name, in the era around WWI, people took more than whole day to have one single photo taken. And it took so much devotion for the photo to develop. And it almost took a person’s entire time for photos, something seemingly so distant for people now )
I also wonder the whereabout of the car now. Maybe it was long scrapped, or maybe it is still somewhere being driven, or put away and forgotten. One sure thing is, when the car was new at the time, it must be enjoyed very much by the owners.
Zona was in her twenties then and a teacher in Indiana After this she had a ’34 Olds coupe that her two younger brothers, my wild uncles, totaled while drinking illegal booze. Somewhere I have a picture of the results. Both later reformed and were productive citizens. While he was in WWII one of them left his new Buick convertible for my Mom to drive. She was 15. They both always drove nice cars.
Zona never had any kids, but my brother and I spent a couple of weeks with them for many summers. They always showed us a good time and took us to a lot of different automotive activities. She died in 1983 and Uncle Bud died in 1987.
It was a wonderful life she had! I’m too young to encounter many owners of Oldsmobiles in my lifetime. My current daily car is an ’04 LeSabre, the previous owner held on Oldsmobile as long as possible but eventually moved to Buick or GMC.
“Furthermore, the entire premise of a vinyl top is predicated on a deceit: To make a fixed roof car look like something it is not – a convertible.”
If someone thinks a vinyl roof is really a convertible, they need their eyes examined.
Different times, different tastes in cars.
I hope nothing in our society is ever based on deceit! 🙂
I agree, I can’t imagine any customers were actually deceived by these, having buyers remorse when they realized there’s no switch to finally drop the top on the first nice spring day.
Nearly every car since the early days of automotive design has some visual cue that has no functional purpose, vinyl tops were influenced by convertibles, tailfins were influenced by airplanes, early aerodynamics were influenced by modern locomotives, scoops ducts and spoilers were influenced by race cars and crossovers are influenced by actual offroad capable SUVs. Deceit =/= Aspiration. It’s all just ways to keep the transportation pod that is the automobile something desirable, above just a utilitarian appliance.
As a kid, I thought vinyl roofs were cool when they proliferated on the early-mid 60s cars, mainly 2-door hardtops. But once fuselage styling became more common in the latter part of the decade, with C-pillars flowing smoothly into quarter panels, it seemed pointless to have a demarcation line formed by a vinyl roof.
When my brother and I helped our mother special-order a Chevy Monte Carlo in 1973, we advocated emphatically (and successfully) against a vinyl roof. The car looked great in dark blue metallic paint.
I recall a stat from the 1974 model year — 80% of all Plymouth Valiants produced that year were equipped with vinyl roofs. It was clear by then that vinyl roofs had jumped the shark.
210delray,
When my parents decided to buy a new car, they looked at buying a 1975 Valiant Signet sedan. They did NOT want a vinyl top. Problem was, every Signet or any of the cars with A/C and V8 had vinyl tops. I knew the salesman they were dealing with, and he said the factory was sending out Valiants and Darts with vinyl tops on all the cars, the only cars without the tops were the “stripper” versions with 6 cylinder, stick shift and NO A/C. He said to get a car without the vinyl top would involve ordering it and waiting 3 months. So mom’s new maroon Valiant sedan had a tan interior with matching vinyl top.
Perhaps the idea was to hint at the sportiness of a convertible, which the hardtop initially did. It might have also had something to do with the contrast of color and texture between the roof of the car and the body. Detroit did a lot of two tone cars in the ’50’s with paint, by the ’60’s it seems like vinyl top did the same thing. You almost never saw a painted two tone car in the late 60’s. If you did it seemed kind of wrong.
Vinyl tops were so in demand that if you couldn’t afford a real one, a simulated one was made by spraying the roof with a splatter texture paint and laying down front to back “simulated seam” tape. There were kits available at the auto parts store and of course from J.C. Whitney. It sounds cheesy, but when properly and thoughtfully applied, looked quite good.
While I generally hate them I’ve seen a few “carriage roof” treatments that feature that European Hartz cloth, without the fake top bows and perimeter snaps that look pretty cool. Okay, Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have joined AARP!
Two-tone paint would itself make a comeback in the late ’70s. I recall a few colonnade Monte Carlos having 1950s-style two-tone paint (minus the chrome trim that delineated the two colors), but it was really the 1977 Caprice that put two-color paint back into the mainstream. Chevrolet almost always featured two-tone paint in Caprice advertising, and by 1981 even Chevettes and Ford Escorts offered two-color paint. But this too would prove a fad that had mostly faded out by the mid-1980s. Some cars since then have used prominent plastic cladding in a different color to simulate the two-tone paint effect though, and a few had two actual paint colors.
I have nothing of substance to say, but just wanted to chime in that this was a fascinating read done in Tom’s usual, thorough style. Terrific essay. The faux-vertible trend wasn’t the most offensive aesthetic feature, but some looks were better executed than others, for sure.
I see folks have already covered cars like the Model that used a vinyl roof as a structural component to cover a roof with wood bows.
There were a number of pre-war limousines that used vinyl tops like the have been used on more modern cars – to block out quarter windows and add privacy.
1939 Packard……
In 1950, the year before re-introducing Imperial as a non-limousine series, Chrysler built a number of Imperial sedans featuring Haartz convertible fabric tops, a la the Virginian . These were essentially New Yorker sedans with Crown Imperial broadcloth interiors.