Once upon a time there were vinyl tops. And some of them fit nicely, were snug to the metal below, and served to accentuate the shape and form they were hugging. Something like a 1968 Dodge Charger for example looks pretty good that way, I certainly wouldn’t refuse one although the bare version looks good to me as well.
Then there are the padded tops that often look ridiculous. But even with those I sort of understand the underlying thought process of “Let’s do this and it’ll rust even quicker by absorbing water in the padding and the buyer will come back for another of our quality cars sooner!” Or maybe just because someone thought some other people might think it looks more luxurious or spendier or it was cheaper than paying union labor to smooth out a roof seam. A 1982 Lincoln Town Car (or most any ’70s/’80s Lincoln) is a good example of many possibilities here.
Then there are cloth tops of both the padded and unpadded variety which would seem to serve as a faux-convertible top. A little (or a lot) cheesy, but not often seen at the manufacturer level, most often either dealer-installed pre-sale or aftermarket. More convincing (maybe) on a two-door, but somehow often seen on a four-door as well, even with a sunroof.
The Fox-body Ford Mustang was itself once available from the factory with a vinyl top. It was snug-fitting, generally seen in a contrasting color, and presumably either was meant to provide a color contrast or in fact sort of evoke the convertible look before there was a Fox-body Mustang convertible. Paul captured this early example.
Then eventually there actually was a factory convertible starting with the 1983 model year (Jim Grey’s picture above is of a later car but of the same era as our feature car), I believe that is the same time that the vinyl top option went away. Note that on a Ford Mustang as on most cars with the option, the convertible looked pretty much just like the notchback solid-topped version. And the vinyl top was only available on the notchback as well.
However that wasn’t good enough for our poor car here. A 1989 Ford Mustang, good enough, even if only equipped with the relatively asthmatic 4-cylinder; still a Mustang. While a black top on a very dark colored car would seem to carry a lot of “what’s the point, really”, to each their own I suppose. And in this case they even carried the cloth down the A-pillars. A touch unorthodox but alright, perhaps a good thing the color blends after all…
However now you’re starting to see the issue…this isn’t a notchback car. It’s a hatchback. So where does the cloth top break to the paint? The top covers the roof and crawls down the C-pillar. Crucially and logically it is also covering the top of the hatch around the window. But how are they going to end it down below?
Argh! My eyes! The humanity! They didn’t end it! They covered the ENTIRE hatch! And then had the gall to put the spoiler back on! And it even has the little snap button thingies at the base of the C-pillar as well to try to make it look like it’s somehow a manually attached soft top!
The enduring question here though has to be: What did they do with the spoiler? Was it covered as well? Or left body color? We will never know (although the fact that someone took it gives a strong hint) and this, this abomination is just one more reason among many why we can’t have the nice things that we desire, we as a species just simply don’t deserve them.
Related Reading:
The History Of The Vinyl Roof Part 1 by Tom Halter
The History Of The Vinyl Roof Part 2 by Tom Halter
The History Of The Vinyl Roof Part 3 by Tom Halter
CC Capsule: 1987-1989 Ford Mustang Convertible by Jim Grey
Curbside Classic: 1979 Ford Mustang by PN
Although I live in one of the places where the faux convertible top is in its natural habitat (I just saw another Buick with one a couple of days ago) I have never, ever seen one on a Fox Mustang hatch. Or any Mustang, for that matter. Just wow.
I suspect that the spoiler was probably a nice woodgrain.
I did once see one on a square ’90s Escort sedan, complete with the extensions covering the triangular windows in the rear doors that exist to allow the forward portion of the door window to retract past the wheelwell cutout.
I wonder if these faux tops are the law in New Jersey for seniors driving 4 door sedans.
Oh dear. I have trouble believing that someone thought that was a good idea at the beginning of the job, and even more so at the end!
Although once again my eye is drawn to how rust free what’s left of that Mustang is. Definitely quicker to tear the remains of the vinyl off than to rebuild a rusty wreck.
Wow. That’s hard to un-see.
I have always put the faux convertible top into its own special category of pointlessness/circle of hell. Far exceeding in my book things like extreme ground effects trim, giant spoilers, and stanced cars. Meaning, these are things that are all matters of personal taste, and are supposed to evoke something useful or practical (in the broad sense of that term), or at least desirable, but just end up being……pointless.
Maybe I need to go spend some time in JP’s part of the country and get schooled on what the thinking is around these things.
The only foxbody on which I like vinyl tops was my red Fairmont futura with a white roof. On a late 80’s fastback Mustang it feels very wrong, it makes me wonder how much money was wasted on it too.
My brothers Cadillac CTS has a mock convertible top. Someone told him it was pretty cool to have a convertible with a sunroof, lol
When I was much younger – and a bit of a cocky a$$#ole – I’d often enter into this exchange with the owner when I’d see a car with a faux convertible top:
Me: “Nice day. You ought to have that top down.”
Owner: “Oh, well, it doesn’t go down.”
Me: “Then what’s the point?”
Thankfully I matured and developed some tact, and a filter. 😁
I could never understand those fake convertible treatments. You get the worst of both worlds:
You get the relative ugliness of a convertible with it’s top raised ( compared to the cleaner look of a hardtop coupe ) without any of the open air capability. It’s pure poseur bait.
It reminds me of those fake squiggly pigtail cell phone antennas from decades past: just perfect for luring someone into breaking into a vehicle to steal a mobile phone that isn’t there.
As a big fan of Fox body Mustangs, slapping a vinyl roof on a hatchback is just so bizarre. I’ve never seen that done.
Not really necessary on this generation of Mustang. But I have to say it was a nice touch on an 81 Ghia I had many years ago.
It’s a Faux Body Mustang.
That’s definitely a new one for the CC complete compendium of vinyl tops.
Such a Mustang with a vinyl roof is definitely a fox pas.
All Foxes with vinyl were faux. The late ’70s Detroit habit of slapping vinyl indiscriminately on every car, even if it didn’t have appropriate body lines for the look, became very evident on the Fox cars. Elegant? No. Sporty? Definitely no.
In addition to lacking the body lines for it, the Foxes tended to have busy greenhouses, vinyl adding one too many design elements.
Why early Fox buyers found these attractive enough to actually purchase was beyond me in 1978, and to this day. So much cleaner without it.
I wonder if anyone remembers the DIY “spray on” fake vinyl top kits. Two tape on strips were laid lengthwise to simulate the fabric seams. Then a splatter paint is applied to simulate the pebbled finish, and this is covered with a colored matte finish. I think that there were some trim strips included to finish off the bottom of the C pillars. It may sound cheesy, but I saw many examples that were well done and were quite attractive.
That’s pretty much the method I used to use when I made model cars when I was younger, only with textured spray paint. Doesn’t seem like a bad way to go to be honest, should discourage rust and if cheaply restoring a roof with vinyl top related rust damage you can probably get away with being a little sloppy in the bodywork since the texture will smooth things out.
You could probably use a spray-on bed liner.
Here’s the only example I could find online. Pontiac’s version of the Nomad.
It’s the prototype for the ’89 Mustang Ghia!
One of the worst parts about this and most any “modern” puffy vinyl top execution is the trim join to the painted body and the use of faux buttons. What convertible built since before WWII looks that crude with exposed tonneau cover buttons on the exterior sheetmetal? There’s something to modern(and I very broadly mean 1980s-present) car designs in general that just don’t support vinyl tops well, but it isn’t helped as designs get cleaner and more aerodynamic the small cottage industry that does these roof conversions seems to get cruder and cruder looking. I have never seen a convertible with the top up that looks “puffy”, like an automotive Afro, the actual Mustang convertible is a perfect example.
Plus fastbacks… ok so many classic vinyl tops didn’t make for convincing convertibles given the often covered A pillars, rooflines with buttresses, but the cars they look good on are usually “notchbacks” and have a clean break line between the roof and lower body, fastbacks are just impossible to mentally justify the look, and even some classic tight vinyl top examples look ridiculous like early 2+2 Mustangs, 66-67 Chargers etc. The Marlin of all cars might have actually been the most plausible execution, with only the very top vinyl covered you can imagine it as a large canopy sunroof.
Of course the Marlin might have also been the inspiration behind this, with its incomprehensible trunk covering
I also have some choice words for the inventor and installers of those gauche chrome fender accents. I see those all the time on Thunderbirds and Cougars and they too seem to encourage rust in one of the few areas that is actually remarkably impervious to it on their bodies. No classic car had bright wheel lip trim that was two inches thick, why do these exist?
I swear that Akismet hates me for some reason… Let’s try this again. I know this message was restored once, but when I tried to edit a few typos, it went away again. Sorry for breaking the rules with this reposting…
Personally, I did not mind vinyl tops back during the Great Brougham Epoch. Cars back then looked good with them, provided they were of a 3-box configuration. The only fastback that may’ve been able to pull off the look was the ’69 Charger, and even it was more of a tunnel back anyway.
As Matt says above, the style just doesn’t work on the aerodynamic designed that came later. I loved the vinyl top look of my LTD, and even liked the spilt look on my Fairmont Futura, but once I got the Aerobird, any love I had for this look was gone. I really irked me when I saw a fellow Aerobird with a vinyl top wondering what the heck the owner was thinking, but as stated above, to each his own.
As to the fake convertible top variant of these, there is one exception that I can think of that was ok back in the day… the Bill Blass Lincoln Mark V. It was still a hardtop, and if you got one without the opera window, it could look convincing. Of course I may be biased here as I was really smitten during my own personal Great Brougham Epoch at 19 years old when I was at my doctor’s office and he rolled up in a brand new one of those.
The one pictured below DOES have the opera window, so Ford did it right here by making the top look like just a vinyl top and not a fake convertible variant. This is similar to how my ’73 LTD hardtop was done.
It is truly an epic fail when you take a modern aerodynamic car like a Buick Lucerne for example… a 4-door sedan… with B pillars… and have a fake convertible top, complete with tonneau cover snaps… Really? – and yet they sold a bunch of them. Why? just why?
Again, to each his own. People probably think I’m an idiot for preferring my cars with 2 doors. 😉
Once again, proof positive that in matters of taste……
…….Everyone else is wrong .
I can’t imagine hating a Fox Body that much .
-Nate
Much as we generally dislike/abhor/detest vinyl tops and faux convertible stuff on later model cars, the disturbing thought is that there are people out there who think these look good. Though it can be challenging when applied to cars whose side windows are as deep as the Mustang, it can be done, as Garry’s Ghia above shows.
Someone had the basics of a nice car here. It could be reasonable but of questionable taste to have a vinyl roof on a hatchback. I was expecting the vinyl to end around the bottom of the rear window. But to carry it over the entire hatch? That’s like a vinyl trunk lid on a sedan – ridiculous. With a spoiler the poor thing wouldn’t know whether to go or brough.
Those top snaps though are totally, inexcusably execrable.
My brother is big into the Mopar musclecar restoration scene, and I have been to a certain extent as well. Vinyl roofs were very common on Chrysler products in the late 60’s-early 70’s, and they did indeed look nice on certain cars like the Charger. Problem was some genius at Chrysler during those years figured out the vinyl roof glue stuck better to primer than it did to paint, and since paint was expensive anyway they often only painted a couple of inches above the beltline on vinyl roof equipped cars! You can guess how that usually turned out, even in California. I remember peeling the vinyl roof off a ’70 Challenger once and seeing a good part of a very rusty roof come off with it. Floors and rocker panels were for the most part beautiful. We were able to save the car with a pristine roof from a wrecked Slant 6 low budget Challenger
The other thing that happens is as the roof corrodes the filler where the roof panel and quarter panel meet seems to lose its bond to the corroding steel and creates a sharp diagonal wrinkle underneath the vinyl on the C pillar. You can spot this on some “restored” muscle cars, which is a good barometer for the quality of restoration it had.
The installers could have finished the vinyl 80mm below the the hatch window and put a trim piece across it.
For the record. I don’t mind the odd vinyl roof. My Skylark had one from the factory. It was with some trepidation I had it removed for some rust repairs.
Under it’s toupee, the roof was in great shape. The rust was around the window recess and under the trim pieces that mark where the vinyl stops and the paint starts.
And yes, I chose to refit the vinyl.
Seems inspired to me.
I just saw a 20 year old Taurus or Sable with a “coach roof”. The sun had degraded it and foot-long shreds were flapping in the breeze.