Recently, I wrote about the gradual incorporation of various creature comforts into full-sized pickups. While a vinyl covered roof doesn’t directly lend itself to creature comfort, it would have helped in illustrating the diminishing divide between passenger cars and pickups.
How I overlooked this availability is uncertain. However, it was Dodge who offered a vinyl roof on a half-ton pickup.
It began with a 1967 press release, a photo from which is seen here. From the press release:
White vinyl, the latest in women’s fashions, as demonstrated by model Eleanor Kibler in the vinyl Cuddle Coat above, is also the latest trim option offered in Dodge pickup trucks. A simulated white vinyl roof — actually specially applied stippled paint — is now available as a factory installed option. The white top joins the black vinyl offering.
This immediately gets confusing. Black is vinyl but white is only called vinyl? It’s something like that.
The confusion continues.
In both the 1970 and 1971 Dodge pickup brochure, there is reference to a vinyl roof option. It was undoubtedly tied to trim level, likely the top trim Adventurer from what can be found, but it appeared to be a standalone option.
This page from the 1971 Dodge brochure is also contradictory. The upper right shows the vinyl roof as being available on D100 (half-ton) only. The lower left says the vinyl roof is available on D100 and D200 (three-quarter ton) only, except crew cabs. Which is it?
If I were to guess, it was available on both. The picture in the upper right of the 1971 brochure is recycled from the 1970 brochure seen here. Given Dodge’s paltry pickup sales (just under 39,000 half-tons in 1970 – about a month’s worth of Ram’s current production volume – and dropping by 5,000 for 1971), it would be hard to justify recreating a brochure. It would also be easy to justify expanding the option’s availability to amortize whatever investment had been made for making these available.
You can’t blame a dude for wanting to recoup his money. Which brings us to The Dude.
During the 1960s, Dodge was nothing if not creative in trying to move the iron. Whenever you can add a little sparkle to an aging product, more power to you.
The Dude was primarily a visual enhancement of a routine long wheelbase, half-ton Dodge pickup. So why is this being mentioned?
The black vinyl or white pseudo-vinyl top was available on The Dude. Chrysler does deserve credit for calling it “white, textured vinyl roof paint”.
As an aside, Dodge was all over the spectrum in their pickup pitchmen from about 1966 to 1976. We can see Don Knotts here; the various promotional videos he made for Dodge from about 1966 to 1971 can be found on YouTube and he’s pretty much playing Barney Fife dressed in street clothes. Later, Dodge would employ baseball player and announcer Joe Garagiola, professional tough guy actor Chuck Connors, and Southern comedian Jerry Clower.
As another aside, it is hard to determine Clower’s capacity for Dodge, but it seems to be minimal; this ad strongly appears to have been for a regionally themed offering. Various searches have revealed nothing in regards to the “Dodge Juicer” Clower is hawking here. It’s hard to imagine Stellantis selling a “Juicer” currently as various slangs refer to steroid use plus anatomical parts of both male and female varieties.
So how many pickups did Dodge build with the “vinyl” roof? It’s hard to say, although The Dude may give an indication. While the vinyl top was introduced in 1967, The Dude was not introduced until August 1969, meaning the vinyl top was available for roughly an additional two years. In all, it is estimated Dodge built 1,500 to 2,000 Dude’s in 1970 and 1971 combined, all built at Chrysler’s Fenton, Missouri, plant. Double that for the extra time the “vinyl” roof was available, and you have maybe 4,000 Dodge pickups with a “vinyl” roof – but likely less.
A quick internet search reveals a high number of The Dude examples still going, with basic vinyl topped examples being harder to pinpoint. Such is not surprising. What has perhaps been the most surprising is how far and wide these vinyl topped Dodges have traveled, with at least one having landed in the UK.
The vinyl roof option appears to have vanished upon introduction of a new generation of Dodge pickup in 1972.
The textured paint presages the current popularity of bed liner paint used on areas other than in the bed.
I can hear Mr. Haney, in his whining drawl, saying, “…and it also has the extremely rare and uncommon optional GEN-U-INE imitation white vinyl roof, and I’ll let you have it for the bargain price of…”
Oh, I enjoy me some Pat Buttram. That distinctive voice got him a lot of roles in radio and cartoons, too.
“Mister Douglas, today is your lucky day!”
It’s hard to understand how the Don Knotts association would sell trucks. He was not exactly a character that men would aspire to be.
Maybe Dodge was trying to make amends for these ads, which I think some folks in law enforcement thought reinforced cop stereotypes. Still, they were popular ads, and ran for several years, I think:
Because he was an enormously popular entertainer who was regarded with great affection by the target audience. The guys who had served in WWII and Korea didn’t buy trucks to prove their manhood.
I don’t think he’s an odd choice of spokesperson for a lack of manhood, but he’s an actor known for comedically bumbling his way through shows and movies. I’m supposed to be swayed buying a truck on the suggestion of a guy who always shoots his gun on the floor from his holster?
That’s as illogical as Ford using actually Chevy Chase as a spokesperson to sell a cheesy station wagon after the Vacation movies …..Oh wait
Irony wasn’t invented after 1967.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the choice of Knotts was tongue in cheek. It was playing on the fact that pickup buyers were seen in a certain light back then, as in country hicks, or whatever, and this rather reinforced it.
The use of the name “Dude” plays right into that.
This was all more light-hearted in 1967 than it would be today, when god forbid someone suggest a pickup buyer is anyhting less than a real man.
I think you had to be there to appreciate the times then…
Irony was invented by Kurt Cobain in 1990.
Ford introduced a “Black textured painted roof includes bright belt and drip moldings” in their 1970 Light Truck Brochure.
I was going to say that Ford did a textured paint roof at some point.
What exactly is the confusion? As I read it, it implies that the black roof was an actual vinyl roof, and the white roof was a simulated textured paint, for one reason or another.
Or am I missing something? Probably.
The confusion, in my mind, is why they weren’t both black / white vinyl coverings or black / white “simulated vinyl” stipple paint. It seems odd that the white top covering would not be vinyl as well. It couldn’t have been due to a shortage of white vinyl – after all, they were making “cuddle coats” out of the material just to use it up.
Were white vinyl roofs available in 1967 at Chrysler on the cars? If not, then that would be the logical reason to use paint instead.
I just looked and white was one of the choices offered on 67 C body Mopars. I wonder if there was some difference in the material used that led to durability concerns with the white? Just a guess, I have nothing to back that up.
They also had the “White hat specials” going in 1967 as well.
roof material aside, I’d forgotten how handsome the Dodge trucks of that era were. The rear roof pillar in particular has a great design.
The Dude abides.
The white vinyl really ties the truck together.
Just make sure mine has the 383… the ringer can not appear empty.
It is really interesting that they would use “real” vinyl for black but imitation vinyl-ish paint for white. I would think one or the other method could be used for each color, but who knows – there must have been a reason.
Up to about 1966-67 it was unusual to see a vinyl roof in any color besides black. Whenever someone says “vinyl top” my mind still wants to substitute the term “black vinyl top” that was on so many ads and brochures back then.
I’m guessing they thought white vinyl would show dirt more, or be too hard to clean
My guess is The Dodge Boys had no idea which one (if either) would be popular, so they offered both. IOW, they just threw both against the wall to see if one would stick. And, it turned out to be neither one.
But I do rather like The Dude (Don Knotts spokesperson notwithstanding). I can see a few well-off Mopar musclecar types getting a 1970 Super Bee with a high-impact color and side C-stripe and a matching D-100 Dude.
I once read in Iacocca’s book how depressing Dodge’s light truck division was when he took over at Chrysler. He specifically mentioned that while over at Ford, their truck division was only concerned about what was happening at Chevrolet and paid zero attention to Dodge trucks.
Even as low as Dodge production figures were back then, I’d imagine a high percentage of them were to government fleets (i.e., the military).
It wasn’t until the Lutz years and the ‘big rig’ look arrived for MY1994 that the Dodge truck division’s fortunes began changing for the better.
I remember seeing simulated vinyl top kits which consisted of that stipple paint and two strips to run horizontally over the top. I saw a ’57 Chevy with that treatment and it looked good, even close up. Vinyl Tops were so popular I believe that they were offered on the Superbird and Daytonas.
Minor correction on the NASCAR wingcars: the 1969 Daytona never got a vinyl top. Conversely, all Superbirds ‘did’ have a vinyl top, but the reason was purely financial. It was expensive to finish the welds for the custom rear window on the already expensive-to-build Daytona.
So, when it was decided to base the 1970 wingcar on the Plymouth B-body, they also chose to build all of them with a vinyl top to cover the unfinished roof welds. As the years pass and the vinyl begins to deteriorate, those unfinished welds can be readily seen.
I had forgot about those simulated vinyl top kits with the strips to simulate the seams found on some real vinyl tops.
From Wikipedia page on “Dude”:
The Dude order sheet seems to reference the pre-modern slang meaning…
Why is that piece type blacked out on the Product Information Bulletin? Is some government secret being protected? In all my years of automobile and truck obsession, I have never ever seen a faux or real vinyl top on a pickup. A occasional station wagon maybe.
This reminds me of the short-lived 1989-90 Dodge Dakota Sport convertible, kind of a regular cab version of the latest Jeep Gladiator.
Since vinyl tops were traditionally created to simulate a convertible, and convertible pickup trucks were virtually unknown, this could explain why vinyl tops on pickups never caught on. Essentially, there wasn’t a stylish look for them to copy.
“white, textured vinyl roof paint” – must have been fun keeping that clean on a working truck
I would love to see one in person to determine that very thing. You might see the one I found in the UK before I see one here.
What’s with the redacted text? A Google image search found no clean copy.
I’m going to take a wild guess and say the redacted word is ‘Adventurer’ since it matches exactly the space for that work in the previous sentence that says, “The Dude is not available with the Adventurer”.
Whoever did the ad copy had completed the ad when someone told them about the change in the package availability. So, they just added the previous sentence and was too lazy to redo the ad type eliminating the word ‘Adventurer’ and instead redacted it.
I did not know vinyl roofs were a thing back then for some pickup trucks. Interesting feature.
The other thing that crossed my mind from the press release is that Eleanor Kibler is probably a great-grandmother by now. She sure was cute back in the day.
I worked with a smoking hot woman back 2013-2015 who at the age of 35 in 2014 became a grandmother…..
The title made me laugh, but this was entertaining. I love Jason’s periodic dives into obscure option packages and features. Outside of the vinyl roof, the thing that grabs me about these trucks is how archaic they must have looked before the new ones arrived for ’72.
Joe, a few years ago I found a ’70 or ’71 Dodge pickup (they appear identical). I’ve started to write it up but haven’t yet honed in on a great idea. Anyway, what strikes me most, and perhaps as big a tell-tale about its age as was the solid front axle, is the angle of the steering column; it is almost bus-like.
Somewhere at my grandmother’s house are pictures of the ’65 or ’66 Dodge pickup my grandfather bought new several months before he died in 1966. It was red with a 318 and a three-speed. Sounds like it was an awesome pickup.
Is it possible the top was black vinyl and THEN painted white? Otherwise I’m imagining something very similar to spray-on bedliner material.
I wouldn’t bet against Juicer coming back, I wouldn’t have expected “Scat Pack” to be available again but sure enough, it is.
This makes me wonder if Swinger is on the agenda.
I can remember when the word “Swinger” conjured up memories of Tarzan.
I can’t say I’ve seen a Dodge, but I have seen Fords with their textured roof and the aftermarket kits mentioned above. It seems to be a thick paint, maybe with a little sand mixed in. I’d say similar to this type of product. https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/rocksolid/deck/20x-deck-resurfacer
There’s precedent for this with the paisley tops they changed the colors on, but I think if it were painted vinyl they probably wouldn’t have mentioned it, nobody figured out their Imperial had flowers all over the roof until the paint/dye faded off after several years.
I’ve never seen anything resembling a vinyl top on a pickup, but I remember seeing an orange Dude pickup when I was a kid in the early Seventies. It’s the only one I’ve ever seen, and I thought it was cool. Hey, it was a TRUCK. Ford had their Ranger and Explorer trucks – Dodge had The Dude. While I leaned more towards Ford and Chevy pickups, I still liked it.