If one accessory defined the Brougham Era, it has to be the vinyl roof. Sure, you can have your opera windows, your tufted velour, and your fold down armrests, but from the start to the end, no self-respecting luxury coupe or sedan would be seen wearing a bare metal roof. As late as 1978, over 98% of Cadillacs were so equipped. After a simple beginning, vinyl roof designs went exponential – landaus, wrap overs, halos, and textures and colors of all kinds. So who did it best – and who didn’t?
The vinyl, or covered roof actually has a long history, dating back to horse drawn carriages. Covered roofs were a feature of many coach built and classic cars up right up to WWII, and even made appearances in popular brands, perhaps the earliest being the Model A Sport Coupe – which also shares the honor of introducing that other Brougham-era icon, fake landau bars.
Of course, these roofs weren’t actually vinyl. Some were leather, while others were treated canvas like that used on convertible tops. But like their polyvinyl chloride descendants, they added a sense of convertible sportiness and color contrast to a plain coupe or sedan.
After the war, the covered/vinyl roof made an abortive takeoff. The 1949 Kaiser Virginian “hardtop” featured a nylon roof covering with simulated top bows, a feature GM would return to in 1962, and in 1950 Ford and Chrysler joined the show. The former, caught without hardtops, dressed up top-end Fords, Mercurys, and Lincolns with similar roofs, while the first modern Chrysler Imperial was simply a New Yorker 4 door sedan with a better interior and a “Haartz” top. Haartz, btw, was a long, and still existing supplier of convertible and covered tops.
But the real breakthrough came when Carleton Spencer, K-F’s brilliant interior stylist and color coordinator, put a padded, vinyl roof on the new 1951 Kaiser to create the Kaiser Dragon, in a series of color combinations. Combined with “Dragon Vinyl” upholstery, this was a real proto-Brougham, and a precursor of many attempts to identify vinyl as something other than leather for legal reasons. Morrokide anybody?
But from there the trail went cold for several years, as designers mined jet-age influences, and outside of the occasional formal limousine, covered tops had no place in a world of thin roof pillars and tail fins. But with the turn to traditionalism in the early sixties, the vinyl rof came back with a vengance, first as an option on those faux-convertible GM 2-door hardtops. At first, your choices were a bit Ford-like: Any color you want, as long as it’s black or white, and full vinyl only.
Of course, the designers weren’t content to remain conservative, and soon all types of vinyl tops were available. Starting with the 63 New Yorker Salon, Chrysler had a penchant for partial vinyl roofs, covering the front of the roof, or the back, or just the C-Pillar. Ford gave us the opera window, GM, the padded vinyl top.
As well as morphing from from black and white to every color in nature, plus a few that weren’t. Not to mention patterns – paisleys, Mod Tops, and even houndstooth. Or Landaus of every stripe.
So who did it best? And worst? I have my picks. Looking forward to yours.
While not necessarily the best or worst, the ’67 LTD 2-door had these as standard for a good reason. In order to create a formal appearance on the cheap, they inserted a triangular piece of metal into the Galaxie 500’s window area, then used a convertible quarter window.
To cover up the welded-in piece, they simply covered it with vinyl, and it was padded also, unusual for a low-priced car. The ’67 and ’68 Merc Marquis, and the certain ’68 Meteors, also this very same setup.
Ha! They pulled a similar trick with the oz Landau
1977 to 1979 Mercury Cougar was available in a nice dark blue with a nauseating butterscotch vinyl roof and matching vinyl spare tire hump on the trunk. What’s worse was the factory alloy wheels were the same color. Often times seen with chrome fake luggage straps on the trunk on either side of that classy vinyl spare tire hump. The Lincoln Versailles had a similar vinyl tire hump but with a gas filler door right in the middle of it that didn’t like to stay closed after about 2 years.
I don’t know, I kinda liked the look of one of those back in my younger wilder days as a brougham fan. I do agree however that the fake luggage straps were a bit over the top, as were the matching tan colored rims. The car pictured below has neither of the latter, and still looks pretty nice to me….
That’s absolutely terrible. By the ’70s SOMEONE should’ve been able to figure out that half landau tops only belong on coupe de villes from 50 years earlier. Does the padded trunklid count as a crash safety feature?
That was just absolutely hideous. And those buckles on the T-Bird were beyond comical.
I’d veto any and all. I’ve spent most of my life in the west, where solar rays wreaked havoc on these treatments, which were better suited to the Missus’ parlors than the street. Of course, I’d applaud the steadfast applicators of ArmorAll, whose attempts to preserve appearances were notable but they seemed to be a minority.
I thought the Eldorado Biarritz was the best. I was in awe of that extra few inches covering the rear window as a kid.
For whatever reason a vinyl top with the chrome trim around the window (as in the subject photo) reeked of cheap to me.
The white vinyl half roof, cracked and yellowing on a maroon faded to chalky purple ’75 Mustang II Ghia, that was purchased as a cheap beater around 1986 was a very nasty looking thing.
As bad as it looked new, it turned into an unforgettable nightmare as it, along with the rest of the car, aged poorly.
The best was the ’68-’69 Lincoln Continental …no padding, sharp fit, we have quite a few in the LCOC that are still original and look good, no rust. The worst? The 1983ish Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue (insert zip code here), with the pretentious roof cap and diagonal rear door cut through the side, it’s still a cab!
The vinyl roof treatment on `75-78 Chrysler New Yorker coupes. My favorite from the malaise-brougham era. Just beautiful.
Maybe the smallest amount of vinyl ever applied to a roof of a car, but very elegant.
1965 Chrysler – my car shown, but also on 1966-68s
First gen Honda Civic
’92 Cadillac Deville Touring Sedan with…I just can’t.
Surely every dealer add-on was checked…the roof is bad enough on a Touring Sedan but then someone got crazy with the cheeze whiz and got fender skirts AND a continental kit.
But it doesn’t have the $399 Continental (peeling) chrome package so give them credit for that.
And no big plastic chrome strip along the bottom that reads “Just Coolin'” or something similarly stupid so +2 points.
The additional chrome would go beyond the limits of good taste.
Nevermind the GOLD trim packages. GM was offering 0% on remaining 2002 DTS’s. One dealer had two. One on lot had damage to the rear bumper, footprints on the headliner and obvious Pepsi spritzed all over it too. I was told “But the dealers wife drove this car” as if I was supposed to be impressed. I told him they should question what she was doing in it with shoe prints on the ceiling. Then took me inside to show me another one in the showroom. It had the GOLD emblems all over it and all the other tacky ornamentation. They said they could remove it and put the original emblems back on. Oh, sure!
I found exactly what I wanted at another dealer.
LOL @ the footprints comment. Toyota was another that offered factory gold badges on many of their cars in the 90s thru the early 2000s. I seem to remember it being a $200-300 option and about every other Camry and Avalon had them.
I wouldn’t be caught dead driving something that ugly. Utterly hideous.
It’s not so bad because Cadillacs are the cars on which you most expect these types of options anyway. It’s not like we’re looking at a Volvo here.
And red and caramel cream aren’t the worst match. I just hope the top fits the interior color.
Now these were horrifying and I remember reading that Ford/Lincoln dictated that dealers were NOT to offer those aftermarket fur/faux convertible tops (with a factory sunroof no less) for the Lincoln LS when it was introduced. And usually the body color and those tops did not match nor even compliment each other (greens were the worst in my memory).
I think they need to send another memo…
I think that LS was supposed to be the BMW/import competitor so they didn’t want it muddled up with dealers offering lime green faux convertible tops and mudflaps with your zodiac sign.
I understand alot of people, including myself, want something different than everyone else has but there are limits.
For me, the only way a vinyl top works is if 1- huge acreage- the car is large and the proportions are long and wide like full sized American cars of the 60’s and 70’s. The vinyl acts as a relief to the large painted surfaces,
2- Hardtop, no B pillar
3- delineated roof, as others here have pointed out.
Just my $2 (inflation and all that)
How about a vinyl top that tries to cover up a super-clumsy design (but doesn’t really succeed)? These 4-door Thunderbirds were never very numerous – but even as a little kid I’d do a double-take when I saw them: “Dayum!”
Reading through this thread and looking at the various piccies it seems to me for every vinyl or fabric roof that looked halfway decent on a car there were about 7 or 8 other vehicles where it didn’t do the car any justice from a looks perspective. And a few models were just visually repulsive and only served to make an ugly car look even uglier. Like that ‘South Florida Special’ white Mercury with the fabric (?) roof. Yucko!
Here’s one I think is terrifically awful… the Chrysler by Chrysler 2 door vinyl top… looks like that damn thing shrank and pulled away from the drip rails!
The stupidest use of vinyl was not on a roof, but on the headlight doors of the Brougham-overload 75 Mercury Grand Marquis.
If a vinyl roof was supposed to look (unconvincingly) like a convertible top, WTF were vinyl headlight doors supposed to resemble?
Those offered additional crash protection. They also shot road pebbles right back to where they came from.
My ’78 Mercury Grand Marquis coupe is currently being painted, and I’m getting rid of all that fake vinyl on he headlight covers, and painting them body color.
Inspector Morse’s Jag.
Here’s a photo of my Dad’s 1927 Hudson Super Six with the fabulous F-Head engine, which he owned during the 1970s. The body style is ‘Brougham”, denoted by the fat “C” pillar, faux landau iron and padded roof. My brother, parents grandmothers and our dog, Royce in 1976, in Hamptonburg, NY.
183 replies and nobody has mentioned this?
No problem. That’s ugly, too. To me the car looks even uglier than the vinyl roof. Looks like the body has been jacked ^up^ above the tyres. Weird.
Perhaps that’s an AMC car? Maybe a 1980 Concord?
It’s an AMC Eagle which is pretty much what you said… a jacked up Concord with 4WD.
Ford sort of tried it on trucks in 1971 with a textured painted roof. The paint was similar to a bedliner material like we would see today. From the 1971 Ford Pickup Brochure…
I always thought the houndstooth roof and interior in the ’70 XR-7 was kinda cool, Bob Tune, son of H.R. Tune on Pipers Lane drove one !