In Lisle Illinois, at a small business on Ogden Avenue there is a blue Jeep Cherokee with a blue fake convertible top and three of those little limo lights on each side. It might have gold chrome on it too. God God, I want to smack the owner in the head.
For those of you outside Illinois, I personally invite you to see this. Sorry, any picture I post will not do this vehicle justice.
To those who have collected them, and even to the younger generation.
I talked to two tenagers (brothers) this weekend. They were showing there 69 camaros . . . one SS and one SS/RS. The cars were very well done and restored by them and their father.
And they both had vinyl tops.
I asked them if they liked the vinyl tops . . . they both became VERY vocal about how they wouldn't want it any other way!! They not only like the tops, but they prefered them.
Just goes to show that many people like VTs on some cars.
Obviously someone elses opinion that doesn't own one may differ.
But I think that opinion is probably just as antiquated as dino caprolites.
I think I miss the vinyl top thing. I always put stuff on the roof or trunk lid of my car. Now my car is all scratched up. ooooooppppppsssss. Is it an option on mazda protege?
I'm restoring a '76 TR7. The '76 was known as the "Victory Edition" it had a vinyl top and those god awful white spoke wheels. I spent a lot of time fixing the damage caused by moisture under the vinyl.
for sale at Rydell's on Van Nuys Blvd. Dark green with a mud color vinyl top. UGH. What makes designers think that tan goes with every thing? My parent's friend had a 70 Olds 98: dark forest green metallic with white vinyl top.I can't imagine it any other way.It was elegant in that combination. As far as function goes, chrome holds up better than paint when it comes to bumpers, even aluminum is better.Talk about a modern cliche:painted bumpers. No wonder so many SUVs are sold. They have some bright work on them, sometimes way too much: The new Montero Sport is the modern equivalent of a 58 Buick [and #2 ugliest car after the Aztek]. Say what you will about vinyl tops and wire spoke wheels, nothing can compare to the junk that people willingly slap onto their SUVs and pick ups these days. They make vinyl tops seem almost innocent in retrospect.It may be that it was just a subtle form of two toning in response to the outrageous paint jobs of the 50's, but it doesn't really scream tacky the way "ground effects" packages do. Sort of the 70's equivalent of a spoiler on a FWD Corrola, Sentra,or Elantra.
I think what you may be reacting to, (well, at least this is how I react), is the idea that anything "useless" on a car really makes it "phony", and most people see through this these days, as folks are more informed and better educated. In other words, they know all these tacky accessories are a 'bluff".
This is not to say a little bit of customizing is a bad thing, not at all. Light and beautiful alloy wheels might work very well on a new car and also have some function---less unsprung weight and better tires perhaps. But a vinyl roof? C'mon. This is not a 1936 Rolls Royce we're driving here, it's a new Buick (actually, a much better car than a 1936 Rolls Royce, but let's not go there!).
Vinyl roofs used to serve a purpose....before modern full-stamping tehniques,where the entire roof of a car could be punched out in one shot, the roof had to be made up of smaller panels braced by wood, necessitating a large square opening in the top. This was covered by a fabric material (1920s). Later on, this fabric was often extended on bigger closed cars for aesthetics, to imitate the lovely horse coaches that were still in people's memory back then. But once Budd (railroad car maker) figured out large-panel metal stamping, the functionality of vinyl or fabric hardtops was lost.
about that.There's a great site called www.beaterz.com where people post photos of crimes against the automobile by way of accessories and what not. I figure if you can buy it from J.C. Whitney and stick it on, it just doesn't belong there. I can't fault people for trying to individualize their vehicles.But you COULD do worse than a vinyl top:I don't know if you remember but for just $19.95 you could add an ersatz vinyl top at the same time you got your car resprayed at Earl Scheib.All they did was spray on some texturized flat paint and........another case of an imitation of an imitation taking on a life of it's own!As a matter of fact, you could probably do your own with a can of spray undercoating and some masking tape......Don't take me there!!!
I had a '69 Grand Prix with the vinyl roof, and immediately decided to remove it -- I thought it ruined the lines of the car (the rooflines in that year were very sharply creased and quite beautiful, imo).
Anyway -- I set about peeling the thing off, discovered that there was about an 1/8" of spray-on foam adhesive underneath, took a coarse sanding wheel and managed to get that off, and discovered my REAL problem -- the welds in the rood hadn't been smoothed out at the factory (didn't need to -- the vinyl top covered it all). So I spent the next three weeks bonding and sanding the top until I got it perfect. WAAAAAY more work than I bargained for. But the result was stunning, and I was glad I did it.
To me, a Camaro or Firebird with a vinyl roof totally misses the point of the styling and the spirit of the car. So do convertible versions of the two cars, although they're interesting and wildly popular (also rare).
I think it depends on the muscle car. The vinyl roof definitely separates the roof from the body of the car, and on some cars that would be unfortunate. An early Camaro for instance, would be ruined in my opinion, with a vinyl roof that breaks up the roof/body connection. On an early Mustang coupe, for some reason, it doesn't look so bad.
So badtoy are you saying the the 'true spirit' of a car that has power would be missed if it is anything more than a stripped plain jane car? I am not sure I catch your meaning by saying
quote: To me, a Camaro or Firebird with a vinyl roof totally misses the point of the styling and the spirit of the car. end quote.
?????
Do you mean that you think the 69 pics I posted show a car that "misses" some kind of point?
shiftright
are you saying you think the car is "ugly fugly" in your opinion??
Hmmm
I will have to say that this car was oooooed and ahhhhed over at a recent car show by the majority of people in attendance.
I think the majority spoke at this show of the beauty of this car even with a so called 'gouche' vinyl top as viewed by some in this thread!!
and your contention that it must be okay if a buncha people at a car show love it is analagous to the old saying that 40,000 Frenchmen can't be wrong.
Yes, I mean exactly what I said -- and I've had two Road Runners, two Firedbirds, two Buick GSs and a Camaro. These cars (except for the GSs) were meant to be stripped-down road rockets, not boulevard cruisers. Convertible tops that add weight and decrease torsional rigidity, and vinyl roofs that are styling devices intended to suggest a converitble roof are concessions to people whose intentions are to go cruising, not racing.
I meant no offense, really -- if you like them that way, fine. I just don't think they can be considered the purest examples of the breed -- do you? In the case of the Buick GS and Pontiac Grand Prix, i guess they're okay -- but they still interrupt the gorgeous Bill Mitchell-insired lines of the car, in my opinion, and they are better off without them.
I happen to like vinyl on musclecars. That Camaro was sweet. Of course, with "SS" on the grille and "350" on the fenders, who cars what it looks like ;-) Another muscle car that looks good in vinyl is the 68/69 Chargers. Saw a ratty 68 at Burger king the other day. Army green with black vinyl top. Even the condition it was in, it still looked good, and the vinyl really made it look good. I'll post a picture of one with a vinyl top if I can find it.
No, I'm not saying the car was made ugly by the vinyl roof, onlyl that it didn't add a thing to it, so therefore, why put it on? Some folks tart up these old musclecars so much they start to look like a lounge lizard owned them.
People ooh and ahhh at the most dreadful stuff, I wouldn't use that as my yardstick. There is the school of car restorers who believe -- "if it breaks, make it twice as heavy, and if it sticks out anywhere, chrome it".
I did the same thing you did to your Grand Prix with my '69 Dart GT. When I bought it, it was creme colored with a black vinyl roof. It actually set the car off pretty nicely, because it also had a black aluminum stripe running the length of the car along the beltline. I ended up ripping it off though, because it was ripped at the seams.
I didn't have nearly as much work as you did, though. At least Chrysler thought to finish off the welds for the roof panels. The only thing I had to do was Bondo up the holes left by the trim around the base of the C-pillars that I messed up taking off, and the Dodge logos that were on the C-pillars. Oh yeah, and the big long rust spot where the tear in the roof let water accumulate ;-)
Thankfully, my '68 Dart 270 didn't have a vinyl roof to worry about, although one of the previous owners did have a sunroof installed. It was about 10 years old when I bought the car, and, amazingly, it didn't start leaking until about a year after I bought the car!
I have seen some more recent Chrysler cars, though, with unfinished seams, I'm guessing because they just all came standard with vinyl tops. One of the worst looking is the M-body 5th Avenue. To make the roofline more formal than a Diplomat or a Gran Fury, they just added some kind of spacer piece to the C-pillars, that also extended the roofline a bit, and held a more vertical back window. And, where there would normally be a quarter window in the door, there's still a pane of glass underneath all that padded vinyl!
I think on some of the muscle cars, vinyl roofs looked cool simply because they gave the car a two-tone look. But at the same time, they do add weight. I remember my '69 Dart's vinyl roof filled a couple of trash bags.
almost all new cars have them now, and have had for several years. you know, those ugly black rubber strips on each side of the roof that hide the rough welded seams where the body stampings are slapped together. No handwork or soldering here anymore-just slap 'em together and stick a black rubber strip in there to cover it up. The more expensive cars have painted strips to cover the seams. Maybe now would be a time to 're-introduce" the vinyl roof to cover up the crude body assembly methods they use now. Heck, how 'bout vinyl covered bumpers to match, since most bumpers now are either ugly, rough black or painted plastic anyway.
Hey, here's a revoloutionary idea. Do away with paint alltogether and vinyl the entire car. No more washing and waxing, just Armor-All the car once a week! Actually, I have heard of a truck that was painted completely in Rhino-lining, and I saw a car on TV once covered entirely in astro-turf, so vinyl wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
I remember seeing a car done entirely in Astro-Turf, and another local car (a 40-something Studebaker) that was sprayed with plastic foam and painted green, to look like a pickle. (Guess that's better than a lemon, huh?) Even the windshield was sparyed with the stuff -- there were two opening perfectly shaped to the sweep of the windshield wipers so the guy could see out. Wonderful weirdness....
My 1989 Cadillac Brougham has a full vinyl top and looks very classy. The roof matches its light beechwood metallic finish. My 1994 Cadillac Deville has a plain roof and looks great. Modern Cadillacs, especially Sevilles and STS's look stupid with vinyl tops. I don't think Cadillac has offered a factory vinyl top since 1996 and that was on the big Brougham. Factory vinyl tops for Devilles, Sevilles and Eldos haven't been available since 1992 or 1993.
I think older cars - some 1980s and most late 1960s and 1970s cars look great with them. No modern car (1990s to present) looks right. I really can't stand those fake convertible tops. Dealers should be forbidden to add such self-destructive junk to any car. Along with fake continental kits, Vogue tires, fake Rolls or Mercedes-style grilles and gold packages, these "Roaster Tops" are the takciest thing since powder-blue leisure suits! The most offensive car I have recently seen is a maroon 2001 Maxima with a roadster top and a gold package! What was that Nissan dealer smoking?
I think a car like your Brougham would actually look kinda naked WITHOUT a vinyl top! Some of the 2-doors (like the '80-84 DeVille) look nice without it, but still just look like they're missing something.
I agree though...those fake convertible tops and vinyl roof treatments they try nowadays just look horrible. I guess aerodynamics and vinyl just don't mix.
Liesure suits are cool! Seriously, the Nissan dealer that did that to the car had to be laughing at the owner. All the way to the bank! "I just charged that sucker 5,000 for a grand worth of gaudy junk to convince him his little Japanese econo-car was a serious luxury cruiser! And he has to drive that thing around for the next 4 years! I love being a car dealer" You'd be surprised what you would do to someone else's car if you can convince them to pay you through the nose for it!
Surprised nobody mentioned the "Mod-Top" from Chrysler Corp. from 1968-1970. It was paisley printed on vinyl, car came in two themes: Blue/Green/Teal or Yellow/Black/White. Available on Dodge Coronet & Plymouth Satelite & Plymouth Barracuda & in 1970 on the Imperial. On the Dodges & Plymouths you could also get an interior to match! (or just the interior with a solid color vinyl top, Non Paisley). You saw a pretty good number of them running around in 1968-1969 and within a year they all just seemed to vanish off the earth! It was at the same time as the T.V. show, "Laugh-In" which featured alot of paisley designs in the on stage set as well as on the actors clothing. It was a big hit show, like Survivor is today. The 1971 Imperial was especially horrible with it. On that car it was a theme of dark green & maroon, and was only available on a maroon car.
rea98d quote: Hey, here's a revoloutionary idea. Do away with paint alltogether and vinyl the entire car. No more washing and waxing, just Armor-All the car once a week! Actually, I have heard of a truck that was painted completely in Rhino-lining, and I saw a car on TV once covered entirely in astro-turf, so vinyl wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
you crack me up!!! LOL.
I am actually having my 454 elcamino rhinolined in a couple of weeks!!! but just the bed though!!!!!
It is being painted right now . . . then off to the rhinoliner!!
Hey shiftright quote: . There is the school of car restorers who believe -- "if it breaks, make it twice as heavy, and if it sticks out anywhere, chrome it".
I think you are refering to "customizers" and not "restorers". Some "restifiers" might do some extra chroming too.
andre1969 And I agree that for many old muscle cars the vinyl top does give a two tone look and is apealing to me. PS . . . I would pull that bondo back out and weld the holes up or they will rust out.
...unfortunately, that '69 Dart GT of mine met an untimely demise about 9 years ago. I got run off the road by a Ford F-150 and hit a traffic light pole sideways. I bought my '68 about 2 weeks later, and held onto the '69 for parts for about 2 years. If I had it to do over again, I probably would've fixed that rust spot in the roof the right way, instead of just slapping Bondo on it. But I was young and dumb ;-)
Actually, I was surprised at how well that Bondo held up though. The last time I saw that car was in the junkyard that I ended up selling it to, maybe about 6 years after I had done that Bondo job. It hadn't cracked, bubbled, rusted, or done anything bad! Now the Bondo in the rear quarter panels, that's a different story ;-)
Andre I had a very similar thing happen to my 67 camaro when I was 19 but I was run off the road by a lincoln town car . . . what is it with these ford guys!!! They are after us gm and mopar guys!!! lol. I avoided hitting the car but I slid sideways into a cement light pole and took it right in my drivers door. . . car was buckled into two.
I had to order a new 1/4 this week for my elco . . . the bondo would have had to been about 2 inches thick!!! hahaha. I have to go pick it up later today. I have even thought about adding a vinyl top to it!!!
Comments
For those of you outside Illinois, I personally invite you to see this. Sorry, any picture I post will not do this vehicle justice.
I talked to two tenagers (brothers) this weekend. They were showing there 69 camaros . . . one SS and one SS/RS. The cars were very well done and restored by them and their father.
And they both had vinyl tops.
I asked them if they liked the vinyl tops . . . they both became VERY vocal about how they wouldn't want it any other way!! They not only like the tops, but they prefered them.
Just goes to show that many people like VTs on some cars.
Obviously someone elses opinion that doesn't own one may differ.
But I think that opinion is probably just as antiquated as dino caprolites.
(you don't have to answer that!)
My parent's friend had a 70 Olds 98: dark forest green metallic with white vinyl top.I can't imagine it any other way.It was elegant in that combination.
As far as function goes, chrome holds up better than paint when it comes to bumpers, even aluminum is better.Talk about a modern cliche:painted bumpers. No wonder so many SUVs are sold. They have some bright work on them, sometimes way too much: The new Montero Sport is the modern equivalent of a 58 Buick [and #2 ugliest car after the Aztek].
Say what you will about vinyl tops and wire spoke wheels, nothing can compare to the junk that people willingly slap onto their SUVs and pick ups these days. They make vinyl tops seem almost
innocent in retrospect.It may be that it was just a subtle form of two toning in response to the outrageous paint jobs of the 50's, but it doesn't really scream tacky the way "ground effects" packages do. Sort of the 70's equivalent of a spoiler on a FWD Corrola, Sentra,or Elantra.
This is not to say a little bit of customizing is a bad thing, not at all. Light and beautiful alloy wheels might work very well on a new car and also have some function---less unsprung weight and better tires perhaps. But a vinyl roof? C'mon. This is not a 1936 Rolls Royce we're driving here, it's a new Buick (actually, a much better car than a 1936 Rolls Royce, but let's not go there!).
Vinyl roofs used to serve a purpose....before modern full-stamping tehniques,where the entire roof of a car could be punched out in one shot, the roof had to be made up of smaller panels braced by wood, necessitating a large square opening in the top. This was covered by a fabric material (1920s). Later on, this fabric was often extended on bigger closed cars for aesthetics, to imitate the lovely horse coaches that were still in people's memory back then. But once Budd (railroad car maker) figured out large-panel metal stamping, the functionality of vinyl or fabric hardtops was lost.
I figure if you can buy it from J.C. Whitney and stick it on, it just doesn't belong there.
I can't fault people for trying to individualize their vehicles.But you COULD do worse than a vinyl top:I don't know if you remember but for just $19.95 you could add an ersatz vinyl top at the same time you got your car resprayed at Earl Scheib.All they did was spray on some texturized flat paint and........another case of an imitation of an imitation taking on a life of it's own!As a matter of fact, you could probably do your own with a can of spray undercoating and some masking tape......Don't take me there!!!
click on links . . . a picture is worth a 1000 words.
http://imagehost.auctionwatch.com/preview/du/dugo/010429005.jpg
http://imagehost.auctionwatch.com/preview/du/dugo/010429004.jpg
I had a '69 Grand Prix with the vinyl roof, and immediately decided to remove it -- I thought it ruined the lines of the car (the rooflines in that year were very sharply creased and quite beautiful, imo).
Anyway -- I set about peeling the thing off, discovered that there was about an 1/8" of spray-on foam adhesive underneath, took a coarse sanding wheel and managed to get that off, and discovered my REAL problem -- the welds in the rood hadn't been smoothed out at the factory (didn't need to -- the vinyl top covered it all). So I spent the next three weeks bonding and sanding the top until I got it perfect. WAAAAAY more work than I bargained for. But the result was stunning, and I was glad I did it.
To me, a Camaro or Firebird with a vinyl roof totally misses the point of the styling and the spirit of the car. So do convertible versions of the two cars, although they're interesting and wildly popular (also rare).
But you know what they say about opinions....
(There -- that's better!)
are you saying the the 'true spirit' of a car that has power would be missed if it is anything more than a stripped plain jane car?
I am not sure I catch your meaning by saying
quote:
To me, a Camaro or Firebird with a vinyl roof totally misses the point of the styling and the spirit of the car.
end quote.
?????
Do you mean that you think the 69 pics I posted show a car that "misses" some kind of point?
shiftright
are you saying you think the car is "ugly fugly" in your opinion??
Hmmm
I will have to say that this car was oooooed and ahhhhed over at a recent car show by the majority of people in attendance.
I think the majority spoke at this show of the beauty of this car even with a so called 'gouche' vinyl top as viewed by some in this thread!!
Yes, I mean exactly what I said -- and I've had two Road Runners, two Firedbirds, two Buick GSs and a Camaro. These cars (except for the GSs) were meant to be stripped-down road rockets, not boulevard cruisers. Convertible tops that add weight and decrease torsional rigidity, and vinyl roofs that are styling devices intended to suggest a converitble roof are concessions to people whose intentions are to go cruising, not racing.
I meant no offense, really -- if you like them that way, fine. I just don't think they can be considered the purest examples of the breed -- do you? In the case of the Buick GS and Pontiac Grand Prix, i guess they're okay -- but they still interrupt the gorgeous Bill Mitchell-insired lines of the car, in my opinion, and they are better off without them.
Another muscle car that looks good in vinyl is the 68/69 Chargers. Saw a ratty 68 at Burger king the other day. Army green with black vinyl top. Even the condition it was in, it still looked good, and the vinyl really made it look good. I'll post a picture of one with a vinyl top if I can find it.
People ooh and ahhh at the most dreadful stuff, I wouldn't use that as my yardstick. There is the school of car restorers who believe -- "if it breaks, make it twice as heavy, and if it sticks out anywhere, chrome it".
I did the same thing you did to your Grand Prix with my '69 Dart GT. When I bought it, it was creme colored with a black vinyl roof. It actually set the car off pretty nicely, because it also had a black aluminum stripe running the length of the car along the beltline. I ended up ripping it off though, because it was ripped at the seams.
I didn't have nearly as much work as you did, though. At least Chrysler thought to finish off the welds for the roof panels. The only thing I had to do was Bondo up the holes left by the trim around the base of the C-pillars that I messed up taking off, and the Dodge logos that were on the C-pillars. Oh yeah, and the big long rust spot where the tear in the roof let water accumulate ;-)
Thankfully, my '68 Dart 270 didn't have a vinyl roof to worry about, although one of the previous owners did have a sunroof installed. It was about 10 years old when I bought the car, and, amazingly, it didn't start leaking until about a year after I bought the car!
I have seen some more recent Chrysler cars, though, with unfinished seams, I'm guessing because they just all came standard with vinyl tops. One of the worst looking is the M-body 5th Avenue. To make the roofline more formal than a Diplomat or a Gran Fury, they just added some kind of spacer piece to the C-pillars, that also extended the roofline a bit, and held a more vertical back window. And, where there would normally be a quarter window in the door, there's still a pane of glass underneath all that padded vinyl!
I think on some of the muscle cars, vinyl roofs looked cool simply because they gave the car a two-tone look. But at the same time, they do add weight. I remember my '69 Dart's vinyl roof filled a couple of trash bags.
-Andre
Actually, I have heard of a truck that was painted completely in Rhino-lining, and I saw a car on TV once covered entirely in astro-turf, so vinyl wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
I think older cars - some 1980s and most late 1960s and 1970s cars look great with them. No modern car (1990s to present) looks right. I really can't stand those fake convertible tops. Dealers should be forbidden to add such self-destructive junk to any car. Along with fake continental kits, Vogue tires, fake Rolls or Mercedes-style grilles and gold packages, these "Roaster Tops" are the takciest thing since powder-blue leisure suits! The most offensive car I have recently seen is a maroon 2001 Maxima with a roadster top and a gold package! What was that Nissan dealer smoking?
I agree though...those fake convertible tops and vinyl roof treatments they try nowadays just look horrible. I guess aerodynamics and vinyl just don't mix.
Seriously, the Nissan dealer that did that to the car had to be laughing at the owner. All the way to the bank! "I just charged that sucker 5,000 for a grand worth of gaudy junk to convince him his little Japanese econo-car was a serious luxury cruiser! And he has to drive that thing around for the next 4 years! I love being a car dealer"
You'd be surprised what you would do to someone else's car if you can convince them to pay you through the nose for it!
rea98d
quote:
Hey, here's a revoloutionary idea. Do away with paint alltogether and vinyl the entire car. No more washing and waxing, just Armor-All the car once a week!
Actually, I have heard of a truck that was painted completely in Rhino-lining, and I saw a car on TV once covered entirely in astro-turf, so vinyl wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
you crack me up!!! LOL.
I am actually having my 454 elcamino rhinolined in a couple of weeks!!! but just the bed though!!!!!
It is being painted right now . . . then off to the rhinoliner!!
Hey shiftright
quote:
. There is the school of car restorers who believe -- "if it breaks, make it twice as heavy, and if it sticks out anywhere, chrome it".
I think you are refering to "customizers" and not "restorers". Some "restifiers" might do some extra chroming too.
andre1969
And I agree that for many old muscle cars the vinyl top does give a two tone look and is apealing to me.
PS . . .
I would pull that bondo back out and weld the holes up or they will rust out.
Actually, I was surprised at how well that Bondo held up though. The last time I saw that car was in the junkyard that I ended up selling it to, maybe about 6 years after I had done that Bondo job. It hadn't cracked, bubbled, rusted, or done anything bad! Now the Bondo in the rear quarter panels, that's a different story ;-)
I had a very similar thing happen to my 67 camaro when I was 19 but I was run off the road by a lincoln town car . . . what is it with these ford guys!!! They are after us gm and mopar guys!!! lol.
I avoided hitting the car but I slid sideways into a cement light pole and took it right in my drivers door. . . car was buckled into two.
I had to order a new 1/4 this week for my elco . . . the bondo would have had to been about 2 inches thick!!! hahaha.
I have to go pick it up later today.
I have even thought about adding a vinyl top to it!!!